We Used to Be Friends
by Book2romantic
Summary: A long time ago, I was popular, well liked, a member of the in crowd. I might have lost it a little after my best friend got murdered though.
1. Chapter 1

I was walking out of the library today, where I'd been studying, earlier than I did a lot of the time. It was Saturday, and I was going to actually treat myself and go out. Somewhere downtown, rather than just get looked at funny by all the people in Hyde Park. I still got funny looks and heard people talking about me, even a year after it all. I'd finally gotten a job that would suck a little less, at least I hoped.

There was a bit of a road block to my exit though. A crowd had gathered at the entrance to the library. Unless it was a big tour group, there probably was only bad reasons for the hold up.

"Coming through!" I announced, pushing my way through the crowd. I couldn't see over them to tell what was happening, and, frankly my dear, I didn't give a damn.

"Move, damn it," I said as I had to literally push one guy out of the way.

"Hey, watch it," he said as I finally got to the front of the crowd. The front of the Regenstein Library has two entrances, a south entrance, and an east entrance. The east entrance has two normal doors, while the larger south entrance has a bunch of doors, including a big revolving door in the middle. Today, the revolving door was a bit out of commission, due to some poor kid being stuck in it. I'm sure some drinking was involved in this situation, but he looked like he was getting kind of frantic. He plainly didn't do it himself, judging by the strategically placed door stop wedged under a different compartment. It was rigged perfectly so that no one could get into that section of the door to reach it.

I looked to the outside world, and of course found Emmett McCarthy, and some of his frat brothers laughing. It would be them. And of course, no one would be helping the kid. I fucking hate the world, sometimes. Well, a lot of the time, really, but not the whole world, just ridiculous jerks like that who get off on cause embarrassment and pain to others.

I know what your thinking. Alice, didn't you used to hang out with those guys? Didn't you, in fact, spend years crushing on and lusting after Emmett's best friend and former roommate, Jasper Whitlock?

And that's probably why I loathe them so much. Because I used to be one of them. Or want to be one of them, at least. I think I was always more of an enthusiastic puppy for their amusement than an actual friend.

I slid my notebook along the bottom of the door, and it knocked the door stop out of place. This freed the trapped freshman, judging by the way the revolving door immediately spun into me, knocking me down and trapping me once the door stop caught again. I jiggled the door for a moment, but it didn't move.

Emmett walked up and tapped on the glass, smiling. "Need a hand in there, short stuff?"

"Let me out of here so I can kick your ass for this whole stupid thing."

"Why do you think I had anything to do with it?" he asked. He turned more serious before he left. "I'm not surprised _you_ would accuse some one with no evidence."

***

_"Jasper!" I'd shouted, bursting in on the winding down party. I'd always suspected that most of the building doors to our apartments could be opened with a swift kick, and I had confirmed it on the way back in to the party. "Tell me you found Bella!"_

_"What are you talking about?" he asked, confused. "What are you doing here?" Back here, he didn't have to add._

_I was barefoot, still, and hadn't bothered to change, meaning that I was wearing a hugely baggy tshirt that could have been a dress on me and sweat pants that I could loop the draw string around me a couple times. And I, ever fashion conscious, didn't give a shit! "Where's Bella?"_

_"I don't know. I saw her around somewhere, but I figured she went back?" he looked at me curiously, and a little drunkenly. "Is that really why you are here?"_

_I saw a flash of bronze hair in the kitchen. When I ran in, Edward turned out to be crouched, chipping away at a bunch of powderized koolaide mix that was hardened on their floor. "YOU!"_

_"Me," Edward answered, looking up at me. "You?"_

_"Where's Bella?" I demanded. That dream that had seemed so real had shown him with her. Had shown him... but it couldn't be._

_"Who?" he asked. Edward went out with the rest of us the least, even less than Bella. Maybe he really did have no idea who she was, and barely any idea who I was. But it had seemed so real. Something must have happened to Bella anyway. Bella wouldn't go home with someone. She wouldn't not call or text or anything. With everyone here claiming ignorance, there was only one possible place for me to check. It couldn't be, it just couldn't. It had to have been a dream. A bad dream, because I had stormed out, mad at Jasper and resentful of how every guy seemed to like her even though she was clumsy and never noticed them and never tried to look beautiful, she just did._

_I turned and ran out the door. I'd run here, and I could still feel the burning in my lungs, but I had to know. My dream had to be a lie. There was no way anything could have happened to my best friend. I ran and ran, my feet slapping the pavement. It was blocks back to campus, at who knows what time of night, and it was no time for anyone to be out on their own, especially not a girl who, due to her size, looked like she could get mugged by a determined middle schooler. I heard the sound of feet moving along with me, but I didn't know. I didn't care. I had to get there. The streets were empty. I didn't have to stop for traffic or dodge people or anything. There was no heart beating to fast to keep going. No lungs laboring to get any oxygen to a desperate body. I was just fear, terror, and I had to know I was wrong._

_I turned onto University Avenue, and even three blocks away, on the wrong street, I could see the lights. Blue and red alternated, reflecting off the buildings. There are millions of people in this city. It couldn't be her. I must have heard about it somewhere, on the radio on the bus, or just someone talking, and dreamed it. It couldn't be her. There was some other, more rational, more plausible explanation for this. Bella was alive. She had to be._

_I got to the police tape, still running full speed. There wasn't even an ambulance. I hadn't even made it in time for that. There was just a van, from the coroner's office. They were taking pictures of the body as I ducked under the perimeter. That body couldn't be her. She was taller, bigger all around. The hair was the wrong color it couldn't be her. My dream had to be lying. It had to be._

_"Get away from her!" I shouted, crashing into the man with the camera. "Don't touch her!"_

_Someone grabbed me, and began dragging me away. I dug in my heels and ended up on the ground as the lost their grip. I scrambled over to the body, and found myself face to face with her. She was starring straight up. Right at the top of the spire, where she'd been pushed from. Where-_

_"No! It's a lie! It's not real!" I felt arms grab me again, pulling me away from the body. "It's not real! This was just a dream!"_

_"Alice!"_

_"It isn't real!" I shrieked into Jasper's shocked face. "Tell them it was just a dream Jasper!"_

_"Alice, you can't be here right now. The police need to go over the scene," he insisted._

_"There's no scene! This didn't happen!"_

_"Just come sit with me," he said. I tried to get out, but I was running out of steam. I could still hear my pulse in my ears, and it was like one constant noise. "Jesus, Alice. Are you alright?"_

_I shook my head against his chest. "I'm going crazy. I am crazy."_

_"Shhh..." he said. "No you're not."_

_I cried quietly into his shirt, as he petted my hair. I had dreamed of him holding me like this when I cried, years ago when we were in high school and he was that brilliant, dashing rogue who didn't care about anything but managed to be the best in everything. I'd followed him to this school, moved thousands of miles to go to it with him._

_"What happened?" asked a voice I knew. It was the only voice that had been in the dream that hadn't stuttered. Edward and Emmett were standing a few feet away from us, as if crazy was contagious and it was too late for Jasper._

_"You!" I shouted, leaping out of Jasper's arms. I tried to lunge at Edward, but my legs wouldn't work, and my feet screamed at me rather than provide any traction. I ended up keeled over in front of him, as Jasper scrambled to gather me back into his arms. "You killed her! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"_

_"Alice, calm down please," begged Jasper._

_"He killed her, Jasper!" I turned my head toward the uniformed figures. "EDWARD MASEN MURDERED ISABELLA SWAN! He threw her from-"_

_I bit Jasper's hand, when he covered my mouth. "Ow! Are you out of your mind?"_

_"He killed her Jasper! I saw it. I saw him push her off that tower, you sick fuck!" Edward danced out of range of my lunge, and Jasper pulled me back into his lap._

_"What are you talking about? Edward was at the party. He wouldn't kill anyone."_

_"Bella was at the party and Bella IS DEAD!" He held up his hand, looking at it._

_"Shit, I think you drew blood."_

_"BELLA IS DEAD!" I shoved him away from me. I stood up, swaying, and immediately collapsed back to the ground._

_"Jesus, Alice. Your feet are bleeding. Let me carry you to-"_

_"Don't touch me! Bella is dead and your friend killed her. He killed her!"_

***

_Yeah, that was pretty much how I lost my cool status._

I snapped back to the present. Emmett was well out of rang of any reasonable threat. I would have just sounded like some cartoon villain when I shouted that he'd live to regret this, or that revenge would be mine. Angrily, I kicked the door, and it actually bit into the wedge of wood, giving me a precious few inches of space to get out of this stupid door.

I squeezed out through it, though my laptop bag got caught and snapped me back towards it when I tried to walk away. I had to turn it side ways before it would let me out.

I headed out to catch the bus I wanted, trudging down 55th Street. I could have caught a bus there, but it would have meant an extra fifty cents every time I did that. On my limited travel budget, that could add up. Most people would have convinced some friend or acquaintance or even co worker to go downtown with them, but not me. It's not that I liked being alone with my thoughts, it's just that I hate having to hear other people's even more most of the time.

I sighed. That wasn't true. I never would have taken this job if I had.

***

_"Come in," called a voice through the door before I could even knock. A decidedly female voice, I noticed. I walked in to find an office that was plainly in use. While it was well arranged, there were papers on one corner of the large wooden desk in the middle of the room, and several file folders in a holder on the other side. Locked cabinets that I can only presume held more student records rested behind me, in the two corners. Sitting at the desk was a young, attractive, blond haired woman._

_I guess that I stood, momentarily confused, for a moment too long. She chuckled. "Call me Carly."_

_"Then you are Carlisle Cullen?" I said, exaggerating my relief. "Whew. I was afraid that I had the wrong office."_

_"Yes, there are so many like mine you could mistake it for."_

_I raised my eyebrows at this. I didn't know if I'd get this job or not, but having it with someone who was snarky and jaded would be, well, it'd be a lot better than I had hoped for._

_"You have a very interesting history at this institution, Ms. Brandon," said Carly, flipping through a manila file folder. "Your grades are very good, except for a period last year. And you've made use of more of the campus resources than, well, than anyone on record."_

_After Bella's death, I'd been a little crazy. Maybe more than a little. I went to the campus police every few days, checking up on the investigation, trying to persuade them that I could help, that I knew who did it, until they sent me to one of the school psychiatrists. I'm not sure if I was crazy. I mean, I had trouble sleeping, was sad or angry most of the time, and never did anything that I had previously considered fun anymore, but calling me depressed like they did wasn't quite accurate. I'd become obsessed. I spent all my time thinking about what happened that night. Eventually, I realized that there wasn't some way that I was going to get justice out of this. Probably not even revenge. Not then, at least. So I'd buried it all, and tried to get on with life._

_Of course, in that time, I'd lost my job, lapsed on my lease, and was failing all my classes. I had to meet with half a dozen adviser's, the dean of housing and student affairs, and am recognizable to the entire staff of career planning services. And this was on top of the fact that I was known among the students as the crazy girl who thought the most popular guys on campus had murdered her friend._

_But it was a new year. I was renting the sun room from some transfer students who only kind of new my reputation, and my grades were back to my previous level. I just needed a better job than serving ice cream for eight bucks an hour. Otherwise, I would go crazy and kill someone myself._

_"A lot of jobs, that might be considered a knock against you, but I actually would like someone who has knowledge of how these systems work, and who might be able to empathize with the students who will come in here." She looked up from the folder to make eye contact with me. Her eyes were golden brown, but somehow seem cold._

_"So really, here's your interview: can I trust you to hold it together if I take the chance and give you this job?"_

_"I'd like the chance to prove myself," I said, trying to hold eye contact and act very sure of myself._

_"Not good enough," she said, finally looking down. She closed the folder, and stood up, seemingly signaling the end of this interview._

_"Last year I lost my best friend, my job, my house, my mind, and the respect of everyone on campus." I said, letting the anger I felt slip out a little bit. "Exactly what do you think will be able to phase me now?"_

_She held out her hand for me to shake. Except that now she was smiling. "That is exactly the passion I want you to have for this job. It's yours if you want it."_

_"I do." And I really did, for all sorts of reasons. "Can I ask some questions though?"_

_"Certainly."_

_"Why are you looking for an assistant to the ombudsperson? Why are you, the assistant ombudsperson even doing the interview?"_

_"Noticed that? Snyder," she sneered at the name of her superior in this office, "doesn't take this job as seriously as his studies. We're supposed to be looking out for students, their advocates against anyone in the university. We need people who are here, and who want to do the job, not just have a good mark on their resume."_

_"When can I start?"_

_"I'll expect you here Monday afternoon."_

_"Ok." I said. I stood up, but didn't leave._

_"Another question?" she asked, as she went back to reading some report at her desk._

_"Isn't Carlisle a man's name?"_

_"I know. It was my grandfather's name," she looked up for a moment. "You know, you're the first person younger than me who ever even knew it was a male name. Most of them just thought it was strange, and asked how to say it._

_"Your secret is safe with me, Carly."_

_"Ms. Cullen to you, kid. See you Monday."_

**Author's Note: I was thinking of actually trying to set a schedule for this. In the future, I think I will up date it on the 15th and 29th of each month. Maybe lots of reviews will make me write it faster. Hopefully, there will be a story to each chapter, along with the over arching plot. We'll see if I can pull that off, right?**


	2. Chapter 2

_She's got the time  
says she's got time on her side  
Running the rule  
Commanding the late boys eyes  
She runs around, knows all the streets by name  
So mysterious, shadows meet James Dean  
She's intoxicating, soon your favorite-_

I yanked the ear buds out as I got to the door of the office. It wouldn't do for me to walk in inattentive and disheveled on my first day. I brushed down my argyle sweat shirt, stuffed my ipod into my bag, then took a breathe and stepped into the office.

Carly, excuse me, Ms. Cullen, was already talking to someone. I hadn't really thought that I would need to knock before I come in, since I work here, but plainly, that would need to be something I did on a regular basis.

"Sorry," I said, smiling while actually being a combination of mortified and curious about what they were talking about. I started backing out of the room when Carly spoke up.

"Pull up a chair, Alice." She gestured towards the boy how was sitting across from her. "This is Royce King. Royce, this is Alice. We just hired her on as a new office staffer."

Office staffer? That hadn't been the job description at all. More of an understudy, or just general gopher, from the duties it had listed in the add. I smiled as I shook his hand. He didn't seem like a bad sort. He just had a t shirt and jeans on, not like he was overly concerned about his appearance. He looked a little embarrassed to have me walk in on this conversation.

"Hi," I said awkwardly. What was he here for? Did he sexually assault someone? Get accused of cheating?

"I got a disciplinary notice for turning up passed out drunk on the steps to the admin building," he volunteered.

"Ooh," I said. I'd actually heard about that. He'd been woken up by the president of the university, according to the gossip that was going around.

"What are you doing here then?" I mean, it was a funny story, but passing out drunk somewhere on public property was a well known way to get a disciplinary notice. Some of the frats pretty much required it as part of initiation. It wasn't even like getting one of the notices was that big a deal. No consequences materialized until the second or third notice, in most cases.

"Well, I didn't pass out outside," he explained. "I'm pretty sure a bunch of the frat guys at the party I was at moved me after I fell asleep on their couch."

"That can happen," I said. "Which frat?"

"The alpha sigs," said Carly, cutting in. "And though you might hold a grudge against them, and they may actually be guilty of serving alcohol to minors as you suggest, Mr. King, that really isn't what this office handles. Perhaps you should contact the campus police with your worries."

She showed him out, giving him some more apologies while not quite shoving him out the door.

The Alpha Sigma fraternity. Home to one Emmett McCarthy. Maybe I would have to get in touch with this-

THUNK! "Here are some case files. I want you to read up on them before I put you on the phones to some of the people involved."

There were actually only three folders in the whole stack. It's just that each one of those manila monstrosities was about an inch and a half thick. This was... a little more daunting than I was expecting. I mean, if she expected me to have those read any time soon, my reading load might have just tripled.

"Don't worry," Carly said, noticing my wide eyes. "You only need to read the summaries."

I opened the first folder, which had a label reading M. Bingham attached to it, and found the summary. It looked like it was only around twenty pages long as I held it up.

"See? Just the summaries," Carly reiterated.

Her eyes seemed to darken, and she chuckled cruelly. "For now."

***

I had only read the files and sat in on Ms. Cullen doing some phone interviews today. I made copies too, I suppose. I guess she really didn't think I was ready to help in any investigation aspects of the office yet. It didn't seem too tough. Call people, get them to answer truthfully and consistently. Keep an open mind because our first concerned was finding out all the facts.

On the other hand, maybe that was where she felt like I was lacking. Because I did tend to be a little biased. I clicked closed the web browser, having punched the number into my phone as I read it off the screen. I hit send and waited for the phone to connect. I always hate that moment when you first dial a number you don't know. You could have entered it wrong and be forced to start over again or connect to the wrong person. You could get the voice mail of the number you want but have no idea.

The phone started to ring, meaning that I had at least averted the first possible bad outcome. After a moment, I heard a click.

"Hello?" asked a vaguely familiar voice.

"Hi, is this Royce King?" I asked, with my enthusiastic telephone voice. I worry that it makes people think I am a telemarketer and hang up, but I never know how else to start this sort of weird phone conversation.

"Uh, yeah. Who's this?"

"This is Alice Brandon. We met briefly earlier today."

"Oh, yeah. At the ombudsperson's office. Before I got thrown out."

"Yeah. Do you want to do something to get back at the alpha sigs?" See? Biased. There wasn't any reason that I should have it out for them. Except for that douche bag Emmett. And maybe his friends that hang out there.

Unfortunately, they tend to recognize me at that frat. We had some, unpleasantness, in the past.

***

_"Emmett McCarthy!" I slurred drunkenly._

_"Whoa, pixie," he said, catching me as I stumbled into him. Apparently, I had decided that it was a good idea to get roaring drunk in response to the fact that my life was completely fucked._

_"Why are you such a little-" I coughed, or maybe hiccuped. I was too wasted to know the difference. "Why are you such a little bitch?"_

_"What?" he said._

_"You know what I mean. He wasn't there. You know he wasn't there!"_

_"Jesus, Alice, are you still going on about that? I told them the truth. He was there. You're the only loony who thinks anything happened."_

_***_

My memory goes a little black at that point. But apparently, I punched him. Pretty hard too, judging by the shiner he has in pictures. And now they don't let me in the frat house. Apparently "harassing and assaulting" gets you a permanent ban. Not that I wouldn't have still done it. Acting like _nothing happened_, like she jumped on her own.

"I, uh, I mean, of course. What do you have in mind?"

I pulled out a pen and my notebook, flipping open to a clean page. "What's your address? I'll drop by on Wednesday after dinner, and we can put together something for Bar Night."

***

Bar night was a weekly party at Alpha Sig. Every Wednesday, there was as much beer as you could drink, provided you paid the five dollar cover charge. They weren't the most rigorous when it came to checking id's, so a lot of underclassmen tended to go there. I had used to go, back when I went to parties, and had been allowed. Now it seemed like such a waste of time and money. Like I had been cheapening myself. But at least it let me have a bit of inside information about it.

Like the fact that sometimes party favors would be given out at the door, or from the "bar" inside. And of course, the fact that a bunch of frat guys don't have the best organizational or communication skills.

I tramped toward the address Royce had given me. I really should have demanded that he come to me, because it wasn't easy for a small person to carry a large cardboard box of supplies like I had with me. At least it wasn't too heavy.

I pushed the buzzer on the apartment that was supposed to be his.

"Who is it?" crackled a voice out of the speaker. Their speaker worked. My landlord had been promising a similar accomplishment since I moved in, but I guess I never hounded him enough to actually make it worth his while. This building looked much nicer than mine anyway.

"Alice Brandon," I enunciated into the speaker. I couldn't actually tell if I knew the voice from upstairs. It was too garbled to be sure who it was. But at least I could make out words. The door buzzed, and I pushed into the building. I had to go up to the top floor to find the his room, and the person who answered the door was not Royce. He was a kind of short white kid, with close cropped brown hair. He really wasn't too remarkable in any way. Except his reaction.

"Damn! Royce wasn't kidding. I guess he really must have caught a lot of shit, if he's hanging out with _you._" He leered at me. "Unless there was some other reason he wanted to hang out with you."

"James, stop being such a prick and get out of the way," called Royce, who had leaned his head out of a door way down the hall.

He turned towards Royce. "I'm just saying, man. She- OW!"

I stamped on his foot as I shoved past. I was in a bit of a hurry at this point. These supplies would need to be prepped and at the Alpha Sig house in an hour.

"Do you have them?" I demanded as I turned into the living room that Royce was sitting in. It was really nice. It had white carpet and a black furniture set. Someone had certainly splurged at IKEA. There was even a huge flat screen on one wall.

"Yeah, I do. But what we aren't going to do anything illegal with these are we?" he asked, somewhat nervously. I'd told him to get a hold of as many small plastic bags as possible. Very small. You know, small enough that they would hold maybe one line of coke.

"It'll just be a harmless little prank," I informed him, setting down my box. Inside was a bunch of party hats, some scotch tape, and all the splenda that had been in the dining hall earlier today. I tore open one of the single serving bags, and poured it into one of the plastic bags that Royce had gotten.

"Here, tape that inside one of the hats." He taped it in, setting the hat down quickly, as if he thought this would be a swift assembly line.

"No," I said, picking up the hat. "It has to be in good enough that it won't shake around."

I taped all the edges, then shook the hat. There wasn't a noise that could be heard over a party now, like there would have been before.

"Like that," I said definitively.

I filled another bag with splenda while he examined the first hat. It quickly did turn into more of an assembly line, and we managed to get all fifty hats done pretty quickly.

***

"I'm pretty sure that this is illegal, insisted Royce nervously, shifting his backpack to his other shoulder again.

"What are we doing that's illegal?" I asked. "We put a bunch of sugar in some hats. How is that a crime?"

"Are we just going to call the police? That can't be legal to call the police when we know that there isn't really any drugs."

He was nervous, sure, but he hadn't stopped walking with me as I stalked toward the Alpha Sig house. As long as his nerves didn't give out, I was pretty sure this would work without a hitch. "Someone else is going to call the cops. We're just going to be innocent bystanders that watch the frat getting shut down for a bit."

"Ok," I said, stopping in front of a bench up the block from the house. "I've got to split off from you here."

"What?" he practically screeched. "I can't do this on my own."

"Of course you can. You know the plan, don't you?" I looked at him when he didn't immediately answer. "Don't you?"

"Yeah. Put the stack of hats on the bar. If anyone asks, Emmett told you to. If Emmett asks, say that who ever was at the door told you to."

"_You,_" I said, trying to drive the point home. "That means you should say 'me' when you are giving the story."

"Right," he nodded. "Can't you come along though?"

I sucked on my lip. "Not so much. They know what I look like. And, I'm sort of not allowed in the house anymore."

"Here though," I said, handing him my phone and snatching his out of his bag. "Put in the ear piece head set, and I'll listen in. If anything starts to go wrong, I'll make a huge distraction and you can get out."

"Ok," he said, looking slightly reassured at least.

***

It seemed to have gone off without a hitch. Royce had gotten in, and placed the hats down at the bar. Apparently, Jasper Whitlock was working the bar, which was pretty much the greatest possible outcome that didn't involve serious injury to Edward.

I had to hold in an angry his as I saw _that boy _walking toward the party with some bimbo. He'd become a bit of a celebrity due to that whole episode also, except exactly the opposite of me. While most people thought I was crazy, every airhead with a low cut shirt had needed to tell him how stupid she thought my accusations were, and how she knew that Edward was such a nice guy and would never hurt anyone. I pulled my hoodie tighter around my face so that he wouldn't be able to see who I was, even though he was across the street.

"Alice," I heard Royce whisper into the phone. "I think someone finally noticed the stuff in the hats."

_Finally. _I had no idea how long I had expected we would have to wait, but I had been annoyed to be sitting here with nothing happening for half an hour.

"Hey," I heard a familiar voice over the phone. "Aren't you the guy who passed out on the steps?"

Emmett. Royce just needed to stay calm. "Uh, no, I uh, uh..."

"Yeah," I heard another voice chime in. "It is that guy."

"How ya doin' man?" Emmett asked. I could just imagine him clapping Royce on the back like they were old pals and he hadn't screwed the guy over. "Who ya talkin' to?"

Oh dear god, don't say my name. Whatever you do, don't mention me. "Uh, my friend..."

Don't do it you idiot. "My friend Alice."

Crap! We were totally made. He didn't even know how made we are.

"Alice Brandon?" I heard Emmett ask sweetly.

"Yeah, you know her?" Why couldn't he be smart enough to deny it? Make up a different Alice. Thousands of people in this school, there had to be a different Alice.

"Yeah, I do. Hey Jasper! Want to give me a hand with this?" I heard the sound of an impact and a grunt. I started sprinting toward the house.

"Hi Alice," said Emmett into the phone. I cut off the call and began making a different one, not even bothering to curse at him first. They wouldn't do anything to bad to Royce would they? I arrived at the door at about the same time that Royce was about to get tossed onto the lawn.

"Oh, put him the fuck down!" I shouted, skidding to a halt.

"Why Pixie," said Jasper in that drawl of his. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard there was something fun being passed out as a party favor. I thought I would come see if the rumors were true." One of the university police cars pulled up behind me. Jasper looked at me in confusion. They hastily set Royce back up, and brushed him off before the cop got out of the car. The officer picked up a party hat from the lawn as he walked up toward the porch that we were all standing on. He looked inside, and huffed at something he saw.

"Who was passing out these hats?" he asked.

"I was," announced Jasper calmly. "But I-"

He suddenly stopped, looking at me. I watched comprehension dawn on him.

"I'm going to need some form of id," said the officer.

"Wait a minute," said Jasper. "I didn't do anything wrong here. I don't even know who gave me those hats."

"Calm down, boy, and just let me see some id." The cop, Officer Jenkins according to the name plate he had on, looked past him. "There wouldn't happen to be any underaged drinking going on in there?"

"Not to my knowledge," said Jasper. "But I'm not really in charge."

"Not a whole lot you do know, is there?" He sighed. "Let's see some id all around. Emmett, I know who you are, and people better not be running out the back of this house where I just had another unit pull up."

"I'll go tell everyone to stay put," said Emmett submissively, heading back into the house. Royce and I pulled out our drivers licenses, and after proving we were of age, were sent off with a nod.

"Wait," said Jasper. "You can't just let them-"

"Be quiet right now, unless you want me to mirandize you."

"But, I-"

"Quiet," said the officer. Jasper glared at me. _I know it was you, _he mouthed at me. I tipped an imaginary cap at him as Royce and I sauntered away.

"See, that wasn't so bad," I said. "Soon they'll find out it was sweetener, and everyone will be-"

"I got sucker punched!" shouted Royce. "What the hell did you do to these guys?"

"You didn't hear that story?" I asked.

"I mean, I did, but I figured it was all just gossip."

"Well, it was all real except the part where Edward was innocent," I said, throwing an arm around his shoulder. I ended up pretty lopsided.

"What about the part where you're crazy?"

"Oh, that part's totally true."

**Author's Note: One review? Really. Well fine. Be that way.**


	3. Chapter 3

I felt my phone vibrate as I was walking briskly along the quads. While these ridiculously shallow pockets make it easy for me to lose things out of my jeans, they also make it really easy to find things. I fished it out as I passed a group of underclassmen.

"Yeah, and then there was this cop there in the alley, and I managed to get away, he couldn't get all of us-" I walked out of range, unable to hear the end of the story of my rather successful operation. It was but a pin prick of what I would do to those bastards if I ever managed to actually get my hands on them, but I was happier to have done something. I'd spent years just taking it.

I opened my phone to find a text from Royce. I don't know if you can be considered a friend if all you've done is get the person punched in the stomach, but it actually seemed like a start.

_Want to hang after work?_

I quickly tapped out an answer as I reached the door to the building that had Carly's, and now, my, office.

_Sure ttyl_

_-A_

It certainly would be different than Bella, or any of those so called "friends" that I had in Jasper and Emmett's crowd before she died, but maybe I would give this friends thing another shot. Hustling up the stairs I made it to the door, pausing to listen to tell if Carly was in a meeting or on the phone. This was only my fourth day, but I was surprised to find silence on the other side of the door. I guess there was a first time for everything.

I walked in, smiling. "Hi, Ms. Cullen. How has-"

"Sit." She commanded. If she'd spoken louder, she would have barked the order, but it was somehow more powerful from the fact that it was said at the whisper level that she picked.

"Did I do something?" I asked, ready to play my innocence to the hilt. I'd become a rather good liar over the years, for the psychiatrists and for everyone else around.

A police report was thrown open in front of me. It was dated last night, and seemed to have a rather detailed description of the incident that had resulted in the party being broken up.

"You can't think I had anything to do with-"

Carly flipped over to the next page, slamming it back flat onto the table. A list of names was there, and highlighted was my own, along with the name Royce King. I don't know why they were highlighted. They were the very top of the list.

"What? This doesn't prove anything," I insisted. "I'm allowed to attend parties, aren't I?"

"Not there you aren't. You think I don't know your history with that frat?" She stared at me, until I finally looked down and pretended to be reading the report again. That was when she snatched it from me. "If you ever pull any thing like that again, I'll have you out of this university on your ass!"

"For what?" I finally demanded. "You have no proof that I did anything. Nothing."

"Who would tell me not to, Alice?" she asked, almost sadly. "Is there any one who would stand up to try to defend you?"

I thought about it, and couldn't even come up with a teacher that I got along very well with. I did the work and nothing more.

"You've made a lot of enemies, Alice. And the only people who's job it is to make sure that you get a fair hearing work in this office." She sighed. "I want you to succeed, Alice. I really do. But I can't be covering up for you, if something like this gets out of hand."

"I understand," I said.

"Do you?" I nodded slowly, staring into her golden brown eye.

"We'll see," she muttered, handing me a different folder. "This one's for you. I want you to do the interviews and give me a report of what you think happened, and what the usable evidence shows."

"Are those supposed to be the same thing?"

"I'd be surprised if they were, kid."

***

I'd had to cancel hanging out with Royce, though he had seemed pretty understanding about the whole thing. Having what amounted to my own case was pretty time consuming, and I wanted to not mess anything up.

The facts of the case seemed simple enough. A third year grader of a calculus 161 course had had a complaint leveled against her by one of the students in the class. Apparently the grader, one Lauren Mallory, had given the student a zero for copying the answers out of the solutions manual. The student, named Jessica Stanley, insisted that she had not copied the answers, but was just being targeted unfairly by Ms. Mallory for unstated reasons. I'd scheduled a meeting with Lauren to discuss her side of the case at lunch.

She wandered into the study room I'd reserved at the library part way through the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I had made for my lunch. Part of me couldn't help but seethe upon seeing her. Short skirt, heels, a top that was too tight for breasts that seemed just a bit too large for her. And taller than me of course. She looked exactly like one of those fake bitches that always seemed to go for _Edward_.

"Are you Alice?" she asked, flipping back her much too blond hair. Her eyes suddenly narrowed, as she made a connection that she probably should have made day ago. "Ohhh. You're that Alice."

"I'm the person you're meeting."

"From the … ummm... the om.."

"Yes, from the ombudsperson's office."

"Ok," she said, shrugging a large puke green purse off her shoulder. It thudded when it hit the table. "What do we do now?"

She fidgeted a little. Part of me wanted to draw this out as long as possible to increase her discomfort, but really, I liked being here with her as little as she did. "Have you heard the complain that's been made against you?"

This, at least, seemed to set her at ease. "Yeah, they told me what that little bi- they told me what she said I did. And it's complete bullshit. I didn't treat her papers any different than I did any others. The first time she did it, I caught half the class copying. But Jessica has handed in three assignments, over the last five weeks, and all of them have been pretty much straight out of the solutions manual."

"Isn't it possible that she just did it the exact same way? I mean, even variable choices are pretty standard in a lot of situations, aren't they?"

"Here," said Lauren, pulling out a book and a stack of papers. The papers were the most recent, as yet not handed back assignment from the offending class, judging by the dates on them. Some of them had been marked by some ridiculous pink pen, which I realized was Lauren's from how often it appeared. "Look for yourself."

She rifled through the stack, until finding Jessica's homework, and pulling it out. Next, she deftly flipped to a page that coincided with the assignment that they had been given.

"Here," she said again, pointing at an empty space she had circled and labeled 'where's this step?' on Jessica's paper.

"And here." She shifted to a page of the book, with the exact same problem, missing that same step. She went onto the next problem, pointing out the similarities, and the ways that they were both missing steps. And again, on a third problem.

"Ok," I said, "I think I get the point."

"And it isn't like the solutions manual always gives the right answer," she added in exasperation.

"Yeah, I hear Spivak deliberately messes up sometimes to keep people on there toes."

"_You_ know who Michael Spivak is?" she asked, surprised.

"Hey, I did take 160s," I defended.

"I just never really thought of you as a math person." She seemed to be looking at me in a slightly different light. "Jessica definitely isn't."

"She got into honors calc somehow."

"It's her second year. Who puts off their math requirement for a year, then takes the honors class?" It was weird. Not really any sort of offense, but a little strange.

"Well, I don't think it's a crime."

"No, I've heard of it happening, but it's just weird, you know?"

"Yeah," I said, finding myself a bit surprised to have any shared beliefs with this girl. "Look, I think you've given me more than enough. We'll call you if anything else comes up."

"Thanks," said Lauren, flashing a rather fake smile that might actually have just be her honest to god normal smile.

***

The next meeting was scheduled with Jessica Stanley. Obviously. I would see if she really had any sort of defense for herself, since it seemed like Lauren was completely correct.

I met Jessica in the same study room, just six hours later. She had brown hair with blond highlights, which, when you really got down to it, was heading down the path towards hair like Lauren's, if you just put even more dye into the job. Other than that though, she seemed much more girl next door in jeans and a tshirt. Heck, I might have worn her outfit, if I wasn't trying to present my professional, private investigator image that had me in a black jacket over a white button down and black suit pants.

"Hi," she said. "Alice, right?"

There was no flash of recognition, or if there was she was just good at hiding it.

"That's me," I said, smiling. I held my hand for her to shake, and she didn't seem to have any problem with it. Fortunately she wasn't one of those people who held on too long or tried to shake or squeeze more than they needed to.

"So," I said, feeling rather strange since I expected to know she was lying to me, "in your own words, tell me why you filed the complaint against Ms. Mallory."

"I filed it because she said she would give me zeros unless I stopped dating Edward."

Now, through out these interviews, and during a lot of the reading on my own, I'd been taking notes. This meant that I was clutching a pencil a lot of the time. Which meant that when my hand spasmed at _that boy's _name, my pencil flipped over my thumb and sailed into the door.

"Sorry," I said, scrambling after it and ruining whatever PI demeanor I had been going for. I resurfaced with my pencil a moment later. "She said she would give you zeros unless you stopped dating Edward?"

She nodded. I gritted my teeth. "Edward Masen?"

"Yeah," she said, getting a dreamy look on her face. I wondered if I was allowed to smack her out of whatever haze she was going into. She snapped out of it on her own though. "After she did it the first time, I didn't really see any reason to keep doing the work. I just copied down whatever was in the solutions manual and handed it in."

"You didn't think that you should maybe do something about it?" I asked, incredulous. I mean, her story was crazy, but the kind of crazy that you could see it happening in real life and shaking your head over it as you read whatever Sunday paper you preferred.

"I filed this complaint, didn't I?" she retorted. "You all finally got around to it, like, five weeks later or something."

Well crap. Maybe she had a point. "Do you have any proof?"

"Just all the zeros. Like I told you guys at the beginning of the quarter." Well, technically, the first one could corroborate her story a little, if the zero seemed unfounded. But if it seemed on the level, it wouldn't disprove her story either.

"Well, we should have this all wrapped up very soon," I said, wondering how the hell I was supposed to figure out what to tell Carly.

"Finally," she said, getting up to leave. "I just don't feel like my personal life should be affecting my grades like this."

_Oh, I could tell you all about personal life affecting your grades._

_***_

_"_Hello?" asked Royce into the phone.

"Hey, still up for hanging out? Even if I'm two days late?" I asked my potential friend.

"Oh, sure, I guess." There was a pause. "Do you like football, because I was kind of hoping to watch the Ohio State Penn State game?"

"Really?" I asked. "Because LSU and 'bama are on at the same time."

Any good Mississippi girl knows her football.

***

Apparently James was out, since it was Saturday night. I guess I was kind of hanging out with the less social elements in the school now. But at least he was a football fan. It was rarer up here.

"You know," said Royce, as we the Ohio State quarter back scrambled for a first down and out of bounds, "it's kind of weird to meet a girl who knows football."

"Every good southerner knows football," I said, thinking about the party that Jasper and Emmett had had during the Rose Bowl when Texas had won. "I followed it more back home. But if someone is really from the south, they oughta be able to tell you their team."

"So..." Was that his standard attempt to break an awkward silence? I'd run across that standby before. "What really happened? With Bella and Emmett and them?"

I sighed. I suppose that it was something I would have to deal with if I was ever going to hang out with people again. "What have you heard?"

"The regular story, I guess," he said, shifting around in his seat a little. "Isabella threw herself off the top of the theology school. No one knows why. You went crazy and insisted Edward had done it."

"Yeah, that's the story."

"But... that can't be it. You don't seem crazy."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks. Just what every girl wants to hear."

"What _really _happened, Alice?" I looked at Royce. He didn't actually look like he believed me. I think he just wanted to hear something plausible. Something where I didn't seem crazy.

Man, I wish I had one of those stories. "I just, I saw Bella and Edward together that night, and then Edward pretended like he had no idea who she was. That doesn't seem guilty to you?"

He didn't respond, which was fine, because the place I'd seen them together was a dream. Or a vision or something. "They just didn't care. I mean, I knew them before. I knew them. Did the gossip say that?"

"Uh, no. Not that I know of."

"Yeah. Jasper and Emmett moved to Biloxi from Texas freshman year of high school." God, why did I bother to think about this. I'd been smitten with Jasper the first time I laid eyes on him. At the time, I had thought he was just perfect, the exact other half to me. Shows what I know about fate, right?

"What about Edward and Bella?" Royce asked.

"Bella was my roommate first year, and we ended up being best friends." I glanced up. "She wasn't depressed or anything. I would have known if anything had been wrong."

"And Edward?"

"Fuck Edward," I muttered, thinking about my current situation in addition to Bella's. "No one likes him."

"I hear, umm... differently."

"Yeah, it's just this stupid case that I'm working on now. Two girls fighting over him have managed to involve me in their stupid little lives."

"That sucks. Which one is going to get in trouble for it?"

"I don't know. Probably the lazier of them."

"Do you actually have to pick?"

"I guess not."

"Then who cares?" he asked, leaning over to a minfridge and pulling out two beers. I guess I had past whatever sanity screening test I'd been given. I took the beer, even though I didn't really drink any more. I heard the screen erupt as OSU managed to score again.

***

Monday rolled around, and it came time to make my report to Carly. I'd already given her an email that had my opinion of the whole thing, but now I would be making it official. Then, in the most fun twist possible, she'd scheduled a meeting with both girls for right before we closed up shop for the night.

There was someone in there this time, and I paused outside to let them finish. I took my bag off my shoulder, smoothed out my shirt, then stood around waiting. Part of me wanted to press my ear to the door, but I felt like Carly would frown on that sort of behavior. I could just imagine me getting thrown down the hall when the door was opened while I wasn't paying attention. I suppose that would be better than if the door had opened inward and dumped me into the office. At least, if thrown outward, I could pretend that I had merely been hit by the door.

It finally fell silent, and a tall, brown haired girl came striding angrily out of the office. She didn't even seem to notice me, pressed against the wall, and I snatched up my bag and danced around the door before it could close again.

"Well, any change since you emailed me?" asked Carly, getting straight to business. I kind of wondered if she was some sort of robot. I never saw the woman slow down. She was constantly working here, or at least was always here before and after me, plus she was a grad student in the anthropology department. Did she even sleep?

"No change. I looked at the first assignment, and it's pretty tough to tell if she cheated. The evidence is clear that she cheated after that, but the first assignment she _might _have actually done the work. I just can't tell."

Ms. Cullen let out a breath. "Well, I'd been hoping for something better to use, but I guess I'll just have to play mediator. Like usual."

"When are they coming in?" I asked.

"Three hours. In the mean time, I need you to look over this case." She handed me a file that was labeled LGBQT.

***

The appointed hour finally rolled around. I was sort of dreading it, though I didn't know why. Shouldn't I have been perfectly willing to twist the knife in either of these girls? Plus, it wasn't like they were the least bit scary. There really was no reason to be worried about this at all. Jessica arrived first, accompanied by her _boyfriend._ I glared, but kept myself from saying anything. He acted as if there was nothing wrong with running into me in this situation. Little punk. Fortunately, he wasn't allowed in the meeting.

"I'll wait out here," I heard him murmur to Jessica before they kissed quickly, then parted ways. A few minutes after the appointed hour, and Lauren still was no where to be found. We'd been sitting awkwardly after some initial hellos, and I finally volunteered to break the stalemate.

"I'll call her," I said. I ducked into the hallway, hoping that she was on the same network as me so that I wouldn't lose any of my minutes making this call-

And there she was, in all her vaguely vomit inducing glory. Apparently, she'd been distracted, because right now, she was leaning against the wall right by Edward. I had to wonder if her skirt had been that short, or her blouse had shown that much cleavage, when she'd walked up. On second thought, probably.

"Lauren!" I hissed. "It's nearly five."

"What?" she said, seeming to snap out of the same thing that the mere mention of Edward had put Jessica into. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

She scurried into the office after me, the difference being that I was annoyed she was such an idiot and she was blushing red from acting like such an idiot.

"Glad you could make it," taunted Jessica. Of course she would have to get in one more barb. God, what was with people? The girl was already mortified enough.

"Let's get right down to it," said Carly. "Because, honestly, I don't care about your stupid catty little fight and want to get on to some real work."

"What?" exploded Jessica. "She threatened me, manipulated my grade, and, and you saw her out there throwing herself at my boyfriend!"

"Did you threaten her?" Carly demanded of Lauren. "Physically, or academically?"

"What? No. Of course not," said Lauren, who still seemed slightly shocked at Jessica's outburst.

"Did you say anything she might have construed as such a threat?"

"No."

"What about when you said how spending so much time with Edward was going to start affecting my grades? Or all the other crap you always say when you see us together?"

"Just because I don't think he should be dating a little tramp like you doesn't mean I would actually try to manipulate your grade-"

"SHUT UP!" shouted Carly, slamming her hands down onto her desk. "My god, what is wrong with you people?"

"You," she said, pointing at Lauren, "shouldn't be getting involved in the personal lives of any of the students for a class you are grading. You're a representative of your professor and the university when you are doing that job, and you should act like it! This is exactly how you end up with a black mark on your record. How are you planning on going on in this university if the professor you worked closest with tells all his colleagues about how you handled yourself?"

Jessica smirked victoriously, just as Ms. Cullen rounded on her. "And you! Why would you think it was a good idea to keep handing in work that was obviously copied? Why not just do the work? Do you think that having a run in with your grader means you don't have to work any more? Maybe, if you hadn't acted so irresponsibly, you wouldn't have pinned your grades on a disciplinary hearing that has turned up absolutely nothing that could justify you copying all your answers verbatim from the solutions manual."

"Now everyone out of my office!" All of us scrambled to gather up our belongings, and bolted for the door. "Not you, Alice."

I stopped, a step away from the door that everyone else had just managed to escape through. "What did you think of your first case?"

"Well, I wish I could have actually turned up something that helped," I said to the suddenly much calmer woman. Seriously, it was like she had just flipped a switch. One minute, walls are shaking, lightning and thunder crashing around her, and the next, she's the quietly intense person that she was the whole time.

"You did fine," she said, waving me out of the room. "Go have fun. Or work. Whatever you do when you aren't here."

"What do you do when you aren't here?"

"What do you mean when I'm not here?" she retorted with a snort.

I waved as I headed out the door. I heard something crinkle under my foot as I did, and scooped up a folded piece of paper as I walked. I opened it up to find a flyer for some party that was being held on the next college break day.

_This Friday, the Alpha Sigma Fraternity presents:_

_The Swan Dive Party_

_Come celebrate the next suicide prevention day in style!_

I crumpled up the paper as tightly as I could, before tossing it in the nearest trash can. I tore down two more before I even left the building.

**Author's Note: Should I try to extort more reviews out of you?**


	4. Chapter 4

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket as I strode down University Avenue.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Alice, it's Royce." As if I couldn't tell from your name and number flashing on the screen. "What is your work schedule like the rest of the week?"

"I'm kind of busy," I said through gritted teeth. "I'll be in prison for burning down a frat house."

I hit the end button even though I could still hear him asking something. He would be able to stop me from killing Emmett right now. I was nearly to the house by now, and that fucker would PAY! I would rip them apart. Every single member of that frat would be unrecognizable when I got finished with them.

I didn't really have a plan. I probably would have kind of a hard time taking out everyone in the frat, so maybe I should just start at the most culpable and move down from there.

First would of course be Emmett. Then I suppose I would want to get Jasper and Edward, even if they weren't really in the frat. After that, I should just get whatever guys were in leadership positions, if I could.

Oh, who was I kidding? I'd manage to get in one good hit on Emmett, if I was lucky. I practically ran up the wooden steps. Right before I knocked on the door, I heard a bang from an open window. I went ahead and took out some of my rage on the door anyway.

"Listen," I heard Emmett's voice drifting out of the open window. "I need to go get the door."

"Don't fucking walk away from me!" I heard Jasper snarl. "I can't believe you would do this! This is fucking stupid, even for you!"

I moved away from the door, hoping to get a better view of the kitchen as I waited. "What the fuck are you so upset about Jasper? It isn't like Bella cares." I heard Emmett's clomping footsteps heading toward the door and realized that I was more interested in hearing this conversation than I was in punching him in the face. I quickly ran to the edge of the porch and jumped over the handrail.

Oh crap! Fuck fuck fuck. Maybe that wasn't the best. I had landed in the largely bare branches of some bush. A few of the branches had cracked when I landed on it, and more snapped as I half waded, half rolled, back to the ground. If Emmett had been at the door, it was all for nothing and they would find me. But he didn't seem to be reacting yet, so I quickly pushed myself against the porch right where it met the ground. I noticed a beer bottle right by me. I was lucky that I wasn't trying to kneel in a pile of broken glass. That stupid plant had scratched me up plenty any way.

I heard the door open. "Hello?"

Emmett walked out a couple feet, judging by the way that the porch creaked, but he didn't come looking around for whoever had knocked on the door.

"No one there," he muttered as he trudged back in again.

"Don't try to change the subject, you douche bag. How could you do this? She was our friend, Emmett!"

"Yeah, was, Jasper! And now that stupid little pipsqueak is pulling some cute little stunt to get us shut down. She nearly got you arrested, man. I mean, fuck, are we supposed to just take that?"

"So you're having this just to get back at her?"

"Yeah. I'm trying to cover your ass, because you won't do anything to get back at her," Emmett shouted as Jasper's footsteps headed for the door. "Jasper!"

I heard the door open, and the lighter step of Jasper's feet shifted the porch as I pressed against it. He came into view, looking as perfect as ever in jeans and a button down shirt. I knew that it would be open and he'd have a t shirt under it.

"Jasper!" shouted Emmett again from the porch. "Are you still coming to the party?"

And Jasper turned around. I was so screwed. His eyes flicked over to where I was crouching against the porch, and I desperately tried to sink farther into the dirt. If only I could will myself through the ground, that would have been perfect.

"Fuck you, Emmett," Jasper offered back. He turned back around and continued walking down the street. Emmett started to say something else, but the words seemed to die on his lips, and instead he just sighed and headed back into the house. As soon as I heard the door close, I shoved out of the stupid bush. I didn't even care if he saw me out of the window. I wasn't going to pay any attention to him anyway.

I started down the street, watching Jasper ahead of me. Jasper who hadn't ratted me out about spying on him and Emmett. Jasper who had been telling Emmett off for this party, which was apparently a deliberate retaliation for the sweetener incident.

There was a reason that I had been infatuated with Jasper all those years. Besides his looks, I mean. And that he was smart. I mean, I wouldn't have liked him as much without those, but Jasper always seemed like he was a leader. He always had stuck to his principles and had always had a kind word for everyone.

My gaze drifted down to the sidewalk, tracing patterns that my feet danced around as I walked, while my mind drifted.

It had all seemed to change after Bella. All of them had closed off to me, and I just assumed that Jasper had grown out of the good aspects of his personality. That he'd turned into the dumb frat guy that Emmett had always been destined to be. But maybe I had misjudged the whole thing. Had I forced Jasper to make a choice, and he had just stuck with his principles, like he always did?

I had to stop that train of thought. Not that it wouldn't be nice to imagine Jasper was still the amazing guy he had always been, and I really was that fucked up. No, I had to stop that line of thinking because I just crashed right into him. Not that it did much to move him.

"Still letting your mind wander, Alice?" He didn't really smile when he said it. That was good, I suppose. I shouldn't want to see him smile.

There are some relationships, where you are so familiar with the person that you just don't need to say most of the flippant little polite remarks that most people would. There was no reason for me to pretend that I needed to say sorry to Jasper, or for either of us to say hello. Even after a year as sworn enemies, he still probably knew me better than anyone else in the world.

"Yeah, just a bit." Neither of us said anything for a moment. He had said he would get me back for what happened last week, but now he seemed like he was sort of championing my cause to Emmett.

"Thanks," I finally said. "For not ratting me out. And for..."

For telling Emmett off for being a prick. For being something like I had always thought you were.

"You don't need to thank me," said Jasper, suddenly seeming more flippant. "I know I said I'd get you back, but I realized something this weekend."

He did smile now, and every bit of its emptiness and falsehood was for me. "You have nothing else. You aren't even worth defending myself against, because you really are nothing. All you are is this stupid grudge that, well, I don't care about anymore."

I gaped at him. I don't know what I had thought, what I had expected, but it wasn't this.

"Good bye, Alice," Jasper said, that empty smile still plastered on his face. He turned and walked up the sidewalk.

Where were all my witty comments? Or at least that overwhelming anger that had driven me for so long? Something, anything, to shout or scream or throw at him.

***

The posters had become too prevalent around campus to tear down all of them. I wondered if most people got the joke that Emmett was making. Maybe it all really was in my head. Maybe most people didn't equate me and Bella and Edward and all of them with what had happened anymore.

"Hey Alice! You going to your friend's party?" I heard someone shout. Snickers broke out in the area around where it had come from. Apparently it wasn't all in my head, but I just didn't feel like I had the energy to fight today. I trudged toward Carly's office after having spent my entire afternoon class letting my mind wander.

"Hi," I said as I walked in. I guess I said it a little too dully, because Carly gave me a funny look. "What's on the plate for today?"

She didn't say anything as she handed me a stack of files. The one on top seemed to be about some student organization that someone thought was having a bunch of it's budget embezzled. I figured that I would get started on that one, and opened up the folder about the model united nations club. Nerdy they may sound, but they were massively influential also, with a yearly budget in the tens of thousands. They travelled across the country for competitions, and threw a huge competition themselves at a fancy hotel downtown once a year for high school teams.

Brent Collinsworth, president.  
Charlene Williams, vice president.  
Navin Sarin, treasurer.  
Kaitlyn Prentice, secretary.

Apparently Mr. Sarin was finding a lot of inconsistincies in the finances, looking at the money that had been left over last year and what they had to work with this year. Two of the officers from this year had been in leadership roles last year, and could have had access to the accounts that he was worried about. I'd probably have to call him first. Or maybe I should start with the actual faculty sponsor of the club. That must be on this page somewhere, right?

"Go home."

"What?" I said, looking up.

"You heard me. You've been on the same page of that folder for ten minutes. Do you have any plan of what you are going to do yet? Have you looked at any of the information Mr. Sarin submitted or any of the counter claims?" Carly looked somewhat sympathetic as she said it, and I had to glance back down to remember which one Sarin was.

"I just..." I just what?

"Have you eaten today?" she asked. What kind of question was that?

"Of course I've eaten. I..." Ok, I didn't remember what, but eating was part of my usual routine and I must have eaten.

"How about this," Carly said, sighing. "If you can tell me what day of the week it is, I won't make you take the rest of it off."

That was easy. I'd just gotten out of an afternoon class. It was a lecture, class, right? Which meant that it was...

"Wednesday?" I asked. Carly shook her head.

"Get out of here, Alice. Go have fun. Have a life. And don't come back until next Monday."

I had been really out of it since my, well, confrontation, I suppose, with Jasper on Monday night. I guess I just hadn't realized how out of it. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok, Alice. We all need some time every now and then," Carly said, waving me off. She had already gone back to reading some file or other.

"Even you?" I asked, as I headed out the door.

"No, not me," she said, standing up and stretching her arms above my head. I almost chuckled as I walked out. What time was it? I pulled out my cell phone as the door clicked closed behind me. I heard a sudden flurry in the office, then the sound of the deadbolt going home. I glanced down at my phone. It was only a little past five.

"Hey!" I shouted, turning around to bang on the door. "It is Wednesday!"

"And that should tell you something too," Carly shouted from the other side of the door. "You're no good to me if people can pull that kind of thing on you."

"I'll be back tomorrow!" I shouted, kicking the door.

"It'll be locked then too," she shouted back. "I'll only be opening it to people who aren't Alice Brandon. Now go to the moives or something."

"You'll rue the day you crossed me, Carlisle Cullen!"

"Better, but I'm still not letting you back in."

I huffed and finally headed out. What was I going to do now, with all this spare time? I guess I'd have to start with heading back to my apartment and figuring out if I had eaten or not. Judging by how hungry I was, she might have been right. I put the Cure on my ipod as I headed bac, humming along with Just Like Heaven as I danced aroudn the cracks in the sidewalk. It was only two songs before I got to the door of my apartment building. I turned it off before unlocking the door to the building and shoving it open. Stupid heavy door. The door to my apartment was easier to open, practically swinging open on it's own as soon as I had it unlocked.

"Hello? Anybody home?" I called as I headed to my sun room to toss down my stuff.

"I'm here," I heard Keith call from the back of the apartment. My room jutted off from the tv room that was to the left of the door. There were two more bedrooms at the front of the apartment, then a long hallway with a bathroom, the dining room, and another bathroom on it, before you hit the kitchen. Keith's room was by the kitchen, placing it farthest from the bathroom and a mile from the rest of us. "Everyone else is out."

Keith was a nice guy. He had fair hair, and was a little pudgy. He and my other two roommates, Jake and Lianne, were all from southern California. I generally tried to stay out of their hair, especially since it was obvious to me that both guys had a thing for Lianne. I did head back towards Keith's room to make some food. Our fridge was kind of sparce. We didn't really have anything that I wanted, and eventually I decided to poach some mushrooms and make pasta. It would be a start at least.

I considered my phone as the mushrooms simmered. I could actually call someone and do something with all this spare time. I could call Royce and see if he wanted to hang out.

Or I could call one of the numbers that had been stricken from my phone. He said that he wanted to get past it, and maybe I should try to also. Maybe there could be something.

I dialed Royce's number.

"Hey, Alice."

"Hi, Royce. Sorry for acting so weird this week."

"It's ok. Your weird is interesting."

"Thanks," whatever that means. "Listen, I have some time this week. Do you want to do anything this Friday? Go to a movie or something?"

How lame was it that I was forced to fall back on Carly's suggestion to come up with something recreational to do? "Sure. What do you want to see?"

"I don't know. What's out?" He started to answer and I cut him off. "You know what, just tell me a time and a place. Surprise me."

"Alright," he said. "How about we meet at the Reg at 5:30 on Friday. We can get dinner downtown too."

"Ok, sounds like fun." I clicked the phone shut, needing to douse the mushrooms in something. Balsamic vinegar, that ought to work.

Wait a minute, did I just ask Royce out on a date? I mean, he wasn't ugly. And I couldn't even claim that he wasn't my type. I just had never really had a type. I'd spent so much time chasing after Jasper that I'd never really had any sort of boyfriend. And then I had sort of been a social pariah.

This didn't seem like it necessarily had to be a bad thing, right? Maybe we were just going as friends. Friends went out together, I was sure of it. I'd had friends who were boys that I didn't have a romantic interest in. I just had never gone out to dinner and a movie with only them. But this was me moving on, and adding things to my life, right? Jasper had been right, I needed to do more with my life than hate people for what had happened. This could be the start of that. This could-

"You're going to burn those," shouted Keith from his room.

"Oh, shit," I said, shutting off the stove. They looked like they were still edible.

**Author's Note: Yes, I noticed that there was no episode issue for Alice to solve this time. I only have three that I am completely prepared to write, and thought that I might be able to fend you off with this chapter. I assure you, Alice will return to being an investigator next chapter.**

**Speaking of next chapter, you can get it sooner, if you want. Alice's favorite college football team was off this past weekend, which means they have only had one game so far this year. If this chapter gets as may reviews as points have been scored against her team, I will update before Alice's team of choice finishes it's game this coming Saturday. And still update on the 29th like normal.**

**There, that's my attempt to coerce reviews.  
**


	5. Chapter 5

_And walking arm in arm  
You hope it don't get harmed  
But even if it does  
You'll just do it all again-_

I shut off my ipod as I spotted Royce standing there in front of the library. I checked the time on my phone. Five thirty exactly. Which meant that he had been here early. Had he been nervous about seeing me and gotten here before hand to make sure that he wouldn't leave me standing around alone? That didn't have to be romantic though, did it? It could just be a courtesy to a platonic friend to not leave them standing in weather that was honestly pretty cold, even if it wasn't snowing at the moment.

Or his watch could just be a little fast.

He had on a jacket, so I couldn't see if he had a nice shirt on, and khaki pants. Seemed a little dressy for "friends," but maybe he was just worried about being seen with me out in public. Sometimes I happen to be a rather snappy dresser. I'd toned it down today, going with jeans and a pretty normal purple long sleeved shirt that I could have worn with anything. It was under a pea coat, since it was like forty degrees.

"Hi," I finally sang out. He waved back, since I wasn't quite close enough for speaking in a normal voice. "So what are we going to?"

"Something surprising, I hope." We wandered down the street to get to the bus to go down town. He didn't offer me his arm as we walked, but really, only Jasper had ever done that anyhow. I guess it had just fallen out of style. I couldn't bring myself to just ask if this was just a date, so I guess I'd have to figure some other small talk type stuff out.

"So..." Yeah, this was working well. "You already know my story, Royce, but I really know very little about you."

"You want the story of Royce King?" he asked.

"Sure," I paused for a moment, before asking in my most wide eyed and innocent tone possible, "it doesn't have any deep dark secrets, does it?"

"Ha, yeah right. There isn't anything that interesting going on in Sunnyvale."

"Sunnyvale?"

"Yeah, it's in California, near Palo Alto."

"Were there a lot of deaths in your graduating class?"

"What?" he said, looking confused.

"Never mind." I shouldn't have expected people to get that reference anyway.

"It's actually the third safest municipality in America."

"Wow." I had no idea where Biloxi was in rankings like that. I guess it must have been pretty average. Third was impressive though.

"My high school was full of kids whose parents worked in Silicone Valley. Google, amazon, netflicks. If it's online and worth millions, people worked there."

"Sounds like it must have been pretty nice." Hey, my life was fine, even if I might have been in foster care for most of it, and couldn't remember my parents. Or any other family. I'd made out ok. I just had never been super rich, like everyone must have been over there.

"Well, everyone was supposed to be some sort of math and computer programming genius. The standard were a little overwhelming."

"Yeah, I guess that would be annoying. My high school was really easy." We finally arrived at the bus stop, and somehow, our timing was perfect. I hadn't had a bus actually be waiting for me like this the whole time I'd gone to school in Chicago. Well, once, I suppose, but it had actually just been a shuttle that the school ran, and not an actual CTA bus like this. Digging around in my jacket pocket yielded nothing but my ipod. I managed to extract my Chicago transit card from the keys that had wrapped around it in my pants pocket by the time the bus started moving, and had to grab a hold of the box that you put your change into to ride the bus to keep from being thrown sideways. The scanner revealed that I had five sixty five left on my card, which would be more than enough to get me downtown and home again. Royce had already grabbed a seat by the time that I had managed to pay. That was before I realized what kind of bus we were on though, and defiantly took a seat in the exact middle of the bus. This portion of the bus was made of some telescoping plastic rubbery substance, and it would bend and stretch whenever the bus accelerated or turned.

"I don't see what was wrong with the seats I had picked," said Royce, joining me after a minute in which we both just sat by ourselves.

"Nothing was wrong with them, if you hate fun."

"I don't think that the seat on the bus makes that much of a difference," Royce said as the floor below our seats rotated back and forth.

"Then these seats are just as good," I countered.

"Until a car crashes right through that plastic and kills us," he muttered as the bus straightened out. The bus came to our stop after a few minutes driving down Lakeshore Drive. We got out at what was a pretty usual stop for me on my downtown jaunts. We were right by the Chipotle I ate at sometimes.

"Well, you aren't being that surprising yet," I offered with a smile, as we made our way into the restaurant. It was a pretty friendish level place to eat though, so at least that helped clear that up. Unless he was just really bad at this sort of thing.

Royce ordered the steak burrito, while I went with a vegetarian. Not that I'm vegetarian, I'm just a sucker for the guacamole that I would have had to pay extra for otherwise. I encountered a bit of a problem though when I went to pay. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it earlier.

Keys. Ipod. The transit card that I had made sure to grab on the way out. Cell phone.

No wallet. I turned to Royce. "I, ummm... I guess that-"

"Oh!" said Royce, quickly cutting me off and jumping to pay for my meal. Well, shit, there went that whole going on a date as friends thing. Now he thought that I thought that this was supposed to be a date, because I _obviously _had been expecting him to pay for my meal. And movie! Crap. He seemed so enthusiastic about it too. Gah, and he bought me a drink!

"Thanks," I said, hoping to defuse the situation as quickly as possible. "Sorry I forgot my wallet, I'll pay you back."

Royce deflated slightly at my announcement, and we ate kind of awkwardly. I didn't finish mine, and ended up wrapping it up and carrying it with us as we rushed off the three blocks to the movie theater. Apparently we were cutting it kind of close to whatever showing we were seeing.

"You'd have had to pay me back for this part anyway," Royce announced once we got inside. He got two tickets out of the automatic box offices, where he had apparently pre ordered them.

"Do I finally get to see what movie?" I asked. He'd refused to tell me all through dinner.

"Well, I forgot to bring a blind fold, so I guess." He handed me the ticket. Under a larger 13 for which theater we were in, read _Where the Wild Things Are._ I'd seen a trailer or something for it a while ago, and it looked like a really neat movie, even if I hadn't read the book as a child like the rest of western civilization had. Not that I could remember at least. I suppose that I would have a different perspective than everyone else.

"Cool," I said. The ticket taker glared at me for a moment, probably over the food that I was taking into the theater, but he didn't stop me, so we just went on in.

***

"Ok," I said, as the bus dropped us off back at campus. "I have to find this book."

"I think you're a little old for it. The movie was kind of different from it."

"But amazing!"

"Yeah, I'm not saying it wasn't, just that you might not like the book as much."

"Well, thanks. You picked a good movie." We got to my apartment much quicker than his, and I headed in. "I'll pay you back next time I see you."

"Don't worry about it," Royce insisted again, waving off my attempts to give him my share of the money.

"I'll worry about it if I want. See you around."

"You're going to sleep now?" Royce asked, seeming kind of shocked.

"Yeah, I've felt kind of exhausted all week," I answered, leaning around the door.

"Ok. Goodnight then."

"G'night."

The evening, it turned out, had been a major success. I hadn't thought about any stupid parties the whole evening, and I found that I didn't really feel like killing anyone over it either. It still hurt, but maybe Jasper had managed to snap me out of it. Or maybe it was that awesome movie. Whatever it was, I went to bed feeling a lot less depressed and lonely than I had in a long time.

Maybe it was just having a friend again.

***

You know what is a terrible, awful, fucking death deserving thing? Cell phones waking me up on Saturday morning. I thought I had turned that stupid alarm off.

I had, I realized, looking at the screen. It wasn't a number I recognized, but it was from the Chicago area code, so it might have something to do with the university.

"Hello?" I answered groggily.

"Alice?" asked Carly's authoritative voice. "I need you in the office as soon as you can get here."

"What? It's the weekend."

"Something came up." Before I could even come up with any sort of reply, I heard the click of her hanging up the phone. I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, looking at the phone while I did. It was seven o'clock on Saturday morning. There was something wrong with that woman.

***

I still went as quick as I could getting ready, even if she was crazy. She was still the boss, and it did seem rather urgent. It was only about seven thirty five when I finally stumbled into the office, only partially awake.

"I'm assuming that there is an actual crisis. Because if this is just to throw me some sort of surprise party, I'm going to go O'Leary's cow on this whole school."

"Were you working on that the whole way here?" Carly asked from her desk, _still _reading something.

"I wanted a more creative way to say I would burn your house down if this is some sort of joke."

"So you have no idea what happened last night?" she asked, looking up finally.

"I was off following orders."

"There was an altercation at the Alpha Sig party yesterday. One of the deeks is in the hospital after being stabbed."

Delta Epsilon Kappa was another fraternity on campus. For some reason, none of the frats were on very good terms. I guess they didn't want to have to compete with each other over drunk chicks. But this was a little more extreme than usual.

"What went down?" I asked. Carly answered by sliding me a folder. "We're trying to figure that out right now."

I looked at the folder. "Not that I don't think I contribute anything, but are you sure you want me on this?"

"I didn't," she said, picking up her phone.

"Then why am I awake?" Carly pointed behind me.

"I asked for you," said a voice from behind me. I turned around, knowing exactly what would be blocking all the light from the hallway.

"Emmett," I didn't quite growl.

"Yeah, me, short stuff."

"Why the hell would you request that I be working on this?" I waved the folder in front of his face. "I kind of hate you."

"I know," he said, grinning. "But I also remember what you were like in high school. No one managed to figure out all the gossip on less information than you. No one got us out right before police, parents, or teachers showed up as much as you did. You were the best. And you want to nail us yourself, for something you actually think we did, not some stabbing that none of us had anything to do with."

Oh, Emmett. How little you are able to conceive of the wrath that I am going to bring down on your head. I am not concerned with you getting your just due only for the crimes you have committed. I just want to be the one to twist the knife. As long as you get punished though, I will be content.

"Why don't you go somewhere and get Emmett's story? I've got a few rather sensitive calls coming in."

"Sure," I said. Emmett stepped back into the hall, holding the door open for me. I walked out under his arm and nearly ran smack into a girl who was standing frozen in the hall.

"Watch where you're going," snapped Emmett at the girl. She seemed to suddenly realize where she was, and backed up.

She didn't say anything, just looked scared before turning and heading back towards the exit.

"What's her problem?" Emmett muttered. I kicked him in the shin before sprinting after her.

"Hey, wait!" I called as she reached the door. I took her in as she froze there at the door. She was tall, for a girl. She had blond hair, though it looked like she hadn't really taken care of it the past couple days. And like they had been bad days. Her eyes looked kind of puffy, like she had been crying a lot and didn't quite know how to hide it with eye drops and make up. I knew the look. "What's the matter?"

"It's nothing," she said, turning to head out the door.

"Yeah," I said, catching up before the door had finished swinging closed. "That might work any other time. But it's like seven forty five on a Saturday. The only people who are awake stayed up because they have some important stuff happening or are me. And you aren't me." Even if I can see certain similarities to how I was right after Bella died. "I'm not allowed to tell anyone what you tell me as a member of the ombudsperson's office unless you give me permission."

That was a lie. But I wasn't going to rat her out to anyone besides Carly, if even that. So it was close enough to the truth.

"I'd rather not talk about it. It's nothing anyway." She refused to look at me as she said it.

"Well, if you need help, we can get you in contact with a counselor, or a doctor or pharmacist, if there is anything you need."

"What are you implying?" she said, turning to glare at me.

"I was just telling you some of the things we could do to help," I said.

"I think I'd rather speak to someone of a little more authority than _you_," she practically spat. "Especially if this is how you treat people who come to that office looking for help."

"Hey, she didn't do anything to you," said Emmett, grabbing both of us to stop us walking. The blond tensed up, suddenly getting a panicked look in her eyes. She reeled back and punched Emmett in the face.

"Ow!" he stumbled back, clutching his eye. The same one I'd punch so long ago. She turned and ran.

"Idiot!" I shouted, kicking him in the shin again. I took off after her, but by the time I got to the corner, she was already out of sight somewhere. Stupid tall people and their long legs.

"What the hell is wrong with all of you? At least you know I wasn't in that fight. The only marks on me are from two crazy bi-"

"Shut up, we're going back to Carly."

"Why? You didn't get a statement from me yet."

"I'm going to have to try to track down that girl that you just managed to scare off by being your usual charming self."

"Hale? She obviously doesn't want to talk to you."

"Wait, you know who she is?"

"I know her last name. She's a second year, she was at the party last night."

I shoved him into the office in front of me. "He couldn't have done it, he's too stupid to walk and breathe, much less lie about an alibi. I have to go take care of something even _more _urgent."

**Author's Note: And next chapter, actual investigations. I wonder what fun new villains shall appear. What twists and turns await our herione. Because no one else seems to, or more people would review. So I wonder, all by myself.**


	6. Chapter 6

I've heard that anything is possible, if you do it with enough confidence. If you are just audacious enough to walk in and act like you own the place, most people will assume you do. This trope is called a Bavarian fire drill, and let it be known, no matter how often you see it done on TV or in books and think to yourself, _there's no way that would work_, it definitely wouldn't work on Carlisle Cullen, unflinching and unsleeping assistant ombudsperson.

"Get him out of my office and get his statement," she shouted as I tried to get out the door. Emmett, unfortunately, was in the way. If stupid giant people would just stand somewhere convenient I would have been off to find this Hale girl but instead, "if there's something more pressing you better be calling nine one one about it."

I turned back to plead my case. "But there's a girl-"

"There's a suspect in a stabbing right in front of you, and it's your job to question him. Do you expect the girl to split town in the extra half hour it takes you to finish getting a statement from Emmett?" Part of me wanted to get upset at her for anticipating what I had been about to do on not enough information to actually be sure, but dang if she wasn't right, as usual. I decided that I probably needed to pick my battles with her more, and took a moment to get my temper under control.

"Fine," I finally got out after silently fuming for a moment. Apparently wanting to go help someone counted for less than getting a freaking statement from one of the easiest to find people on campus.

"Were you always this crazy?" Emmett asked as I led him away from the office again.

Turning to glare at him wouldn't even be worth it, would it. How do you even answer that question? _Why no, Emmett, I used to seem much saner back when I was a groupie of you and your friends. Then my best friend had her brains splattered everywhere. _I settled for just staring straight ahead and walking as quickly as I could. Which wasn't very quick, compared to the person two feet taller than me walking right beside me.

"I remember you being more talkative," Emmett continued when I didn't respond. "Hell, I remember us not being able to shut you up."

We finally arrived at a bench near the door of the building. "Emmett, let's just get this over with as fast as we can so _I _don't get arrested."

"Fine with me." He thudded onto the bench.

"Let's start at the beginning then." I sighed, as I sat down. "Do you know what started the fight?"

"Well, if I had to guess, it would probably be because Jasper dumped a bucket of vomit on that deek's head."

Great. It looked like it was nothing but good news all around. No, wait, I should be sarcastic and upset about Jasper being involved in this. I should be glad he is going to get screwed over with the rest of them. "Do you know why he did that?"

"No, I haven't talked with anyone besides you or the police. Jasper's probably still sleeping off a hangover, why don't you ask him?"

I made a note on my ever present legal pad to do exactly that. "So, bucket of vomit to the head. Then what happened?"

"Well, the guy started swinging at Jasper, obviously. He was pretty drunk though, and Jasper wasn't, so a couple of his friends jumped in." Emmett grinned, and he almost seemed to get a twinkle in his eye. "So that was when I jumped in."

Great, how immature was he? Maybe he should tell me that he was trying to break up the fight, if he wanted to make sure that he got out of this without getting into any trouble. But he wasn't even smart enough for that. I cleared my throat to get him to move along.

"Well, after that, the fight ended rather quickly."

I looked over the notes I had taken down very quickly. "Maybe I wasn't paying attention, Emmett, but there doesn't seem to be any stabbing in this story."

Emmett shook his head. "Nah, that was later on. I heard some girl screaming, and went to see what it was. I found Paul, the deek, bleeding there on the ground."

"And this was the guy that Jasper had started a fight with earlier?"

He shook his head again. "No, that was Embry."

I'd need to talk to this Embry character, too, and see if he had a different story than Emmett and Jasper. "Do you know who the girl was who found..." I glanced back at the page, "Paul?"

He got a strange look on his face. "Jenna? Jessie? Jamie?"

Ah, it must have been the look he gets when he's trying to think.

"She was dating Edward," Emmett finally supplied.

"Jessica?"

"Yeah, I think that was it." Well, I suppose he had been mildly helpful.

"Where were you before Paul was found?" Just to make sure he didn't want to confess to everything right here.

"I was at one of the kegs in the kitchen. You can ask any of a couple dozen people who must have been in there." He probably was where he said he was. But those dozens of people would all be drunk and he wouldn't be sure that any one of them had actually been in there with him.

"I'm sure we'll be in touch," I said, standing up. Now all I'd need to do was get this back to Carly, do whatever other jobs she managed to come up with, _then_ I could find the girl who had been standing outside our office that Emmett had scared away. For good measure, I scribbled down her name on the sheet below the one that I had written down Emmett's words on.

"When do you think this whole thing will be over with?" Apparently Emmett just wanted to get on with this.

I glanced back at him over my shoulder. "I'll make sure this follows you forever!"

He looked slightly shaken by my pronouncement, even if I wasn't sure I was serious. I hustled back to the office, knocking lightly when I got to the door.

"Come in," Carly called. She was just setting her phone back in the cradle as I entered. "Did you find out anything interesting from Emmett?"

"No. He knows some of the people involved, of course, and jumped into the initial fight, but he doesn't seem to have any idea what happened with the stabbing."

"He said Jasper started the initial altercation?" I nodded. "Go find him, and get his story of what happened."

"You don't already have this?" I said in exasperation.

"It isn't our job to just accept what everyone is already saying." I sighed again. It was too early for this sort of thing. Especially on a Saturday.

***

Hopefully, Jasper was just asleep at the address that was listed conveniently enough on his facebook.

I pressed the buzzer, looking around. The building was sort of shaped like a horseshoe, with me standing in the middle of it trying to get in. Amazingly enough, there was a replying buzz almost immediately. He didn't even ask who it was. I ducked into the much warmer building, and started heading up the carpeted stairs to the top floor that Jasper was supposed to be on.

"Alice?" called a rather bleary and confused voice above me. I looked up to find a a head of messy blond hair and blood shot blue eyes. He looked like he'd been drinking a lot the night before. It must have been some party. "What are you doing here?"

He didn't sound upset to see me. Just... really confused.

"Hi, Jasper." I became sheepish when I got up to the top of the stairs, as I realized he was only in his boxers. "I, uh, I had to-"

Jasper's eyes widened as he seemed to catch on why I was stuttering and having a bit of trouble maintaining eye contact. "I'll be right back."

He ducked back into his apartment, not closing the door. I waited for a moment, at least until I heard the sound of a zipper being done, before slowly following him. I stopped at the threshold, waiting there. Jasper had a studio apartment. It wasn't bad, I suppose, especially if you were comparing it to the usual college guy's apartment, but the OCD part of me was not ok with the clothes lying around or with the kitchen. It looked like those dirty dishes had been sitting in the sink for days. And there was something on the stove that needed to be scrubbed off. But other than that it seemed fine. There was a futon that was currently in bed mode in the middle of the back wall between to tall wooden bookcases. There was a green papasan in the corner, and a black entertainment center where the chair and futon could see it. I liked it, even if it seemed sort of bare. Plus, there was no table. Where did he eat?

Jasper was still pulling a shirt over his head as I took it all in. He still didn't seem upset when he found me standing in his apartment. We both stood there in silence for a moment.

"Hi," I finally said.

"Hello." He looked cute, rather than stupid like Emmett had, as he tried to think of what was going on. I decided to lend a hand.

"I'm here about last night."

No look of comprehension was forthcoming.

"You don't remember any of it, do you?"

"No," he suddenly looked worried. "Did I ... say something to you?"

"No, but you did get into a fight with a person who turned up stabbed."

"What?" Needless to say, he was surprised. "Are you serious?"

I nodded. "One of the Deeks got stabbed at the ... alpha sig party last night."

I was reluctant to actually say the name of the party, which I might have to get over if I was going to be investigating it for a long period of time. Either that, or I would just refer to it as the events in question.

"So I did end up going to the party?" he asked.

"Well, I'd been hoping you could tell me about that."

"I started last night drinking by myself. I guess Emmett must have called and convinced me to show at the party." He started looking around. "Do you see my phone?"

I didn't. "Want me to call it?"

"You still have my number?" I suppose he was right to be surprised.

On the other hand, "no."

I just still have it memorized. He held out his hand and I tossed him my phone. His began ringing in another set of pants that was on the floor. Jasper handed me my phone back. I shivered slightly as his hand brushed mine.

"It's too cold in here," muttered Jasper as he began fiddling with his phone. "Yeah, Emmett called me a bunch last night. What a woman."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, you know what I mean."

I rolled my eyes at him this time. "So you don't remember anything?"

"No." More head shaking. I was getting so sick of all the head shaking. Couldn't someone just know what happened? "Oh, crap. You said I got in a fight?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"You dumped a bucket of vomit on a guy, he swung at you, you swung at him, his friends jumped in, Emmett joined in on your side."

"Probably a good thing he did. He tends to end fights quickly."

"It's what he told me happened."

"And somebody got stabbed?" I nodded. "Crap. I haven't talked to the police or anything. Do you think that I should go turn myself in?"

"I suppose you should at least go make a statement."

"Do you want to come?"

"Sure. After that I can haul you back to my boss."

"Sounds like a date."

More eye rolling ensued.

***

We arrived in front of the brick building that houses the campus police rather quickly. I mean, it was a really awkward walk, but it still didn't seem to drag on. We wandered into the double doors, and I was about to lead Jasper over to the front desk, when there was some shouting from the back of the station.

"That's him! That's the guy that started the fight last night!"

"Your fame precedes you," I whispered to Jasper, as a Native American looking guy led two cops toward us. "I think you might have to handle this part on your own."

"Will you wait here for me?"

"I- Wait, what?"

"Never mind," Jasper said quickly.

"No, sure. I'll be right here. It's practically my job anyway."

He nodded in thanks and went to meet the police. What the hell had that been about? He'd just lectured me earlier this week on how he didn't want to have anything to do with me. And now he-

My phone was ringing. I pulled it out, checking who it was. "Royce, not only do I not have time, why in the world are you calling me at this hour on a Saturday?"

"Alice! Can you come by my place? Now?"

"I'm working-"

"Yeah, on the stabbing from last night. It has to do with that." Ok, that was a good reason for him to call me on a Saturday morning. Everyone and their stupid good reasons.

"This wouldn't be something convenient you could just tell me over the phone, is it?"

"No! Hurry over!"

I hung up angrily. Everyone was ordering me around. I was woken up because Emmett asked, sent after Jasper on Carly's order, rushing off to see what Royce had. One day I'd be in charge. Or I would just shut off my phone tomorrow and soak in a bubble filled tub until I'm so wrinkled that I form a perfect puzzle piece to the raisins I have in my kitchen.

I hustled off, as I had been doing all day.

***

The door started buzzing as soon as I walked up, so I guess Royce had been watching out the window for me.

I ran up the stairs, knocking on his door as soon as I got there.

"Is that you, Alice?"

"Who the hell else would it be?" I gasped, out of breath from running up the stairs. Was he expecting the cops to burst in on him? What did he have in there?

"Just making sure," he said as he opened the door. I practically collapsed into the hall.

"What is it that you have to show me here? It better be either a bloody knife or a dead body, because today has been a weird day." Rants are not conducive to catching your breath.

"Well, I guess you're going to be upset, because I don't really have anything."

"You!" called a voice from out of my hazy early morning memory. "This is who you called to help?"

I turned to find a tall blond looking rather pissed at the whole world.

"Rose, she's not just going to over react. It's her job to be on our side. Plus, she's a friend."

The blond, one Rose Hale, huffed angrily.

"Why am I here?" I practically moaned. "No, wait, why are you here?"

"She's my lab partner in o-chem." I looked at him like he was crazy. "We've bonded, I swear."

"Why are you in o-chem?"

"That is hardly relevant. Rose has important information about what happened."

"I don't think I want to hear it. I think I want to just quit my job." Judging by the look on his face, Royce thought I was serious. "Oh, come on. Just tell me what happened you all."

"I think we better sit down," Royce announced gravely. I thought I should punch him, but I didn't.

We filed into Royce's living room instead of committing any new acts of violence. Royce and Rose sat on the coach, while I sat across from them in some weird IKEA style rocking chair.

"So?" I prompted.

Rose gulped. "I was... I was at the party last night."

"I heard that you were." I tried to sound more sympathetic this time, rather than the pissed that I had been all morning.

Rose seemed to start blankly ahead. "I... I-"

Royce grabbed one of her hands, and she smiled thankfully at him.

"Did you see who stabbed Paul?" I prompted.

"I stabbed Paul," Rose announced to me, eyes blazing.


	7. Chapter 7

_"I stabbed Paul," Rose announced to me, eyes blazing._

"Say that again."

"I'm the one who stabbed him."

"Great!" I announced, leaping up. I headed for the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Royce jumped up to try to stop me.

"I'm going home. I've solved the case. I know who did it and _I don't care._ I just want to go home and sleep for a few more hours like I was planning to. Today has just been- It's been-"

My phone started ringing again. "Arrrrgh!"

I turned around and threw it at the wall behind me. And with surprisingly good reflexes, Rose caught it rather than just letting it shatter like I had planned. She glanced at the number. "It's unlisted."

"Why did you do that?"

"Do you want me to answer it?" Apparently she didn't care that I had meant to smash my second most valuable belonging.

"Why did you do it?"

"Alice's answering service, this is Rosalie speaking, how may we direct your call?" She covered the mouthpiece as she turned to me. "Someone named Jasper wants to know how you got kidnapped and mugged out of a police station."

I just continued glaring at her. My glaring wasn't causing anyone to shy away today. I must be over using it. I'm sure the glaring muscles can get worn out like any others. "Fine. I'll take it."

She tossed me back the phone, and I managed to not hang up as I nearly dropped it. "Jasper?"

"You didn't wait for me." It was an accusation, but it sounded strangely humorous.

"Something came up."

"Well, I just got arrested for stabbing someone, so I hope that it was a really big deal. Otherwise how important I am might go to my head when you come running back to me."

"Somehow, your head getting even larger never struck me as something I should care about."

"Well, what took you away from me?" Did he have to keep phrasing things like that?

"I-" and I had to stop. Because I did know what happened, but I wasn't sure if I could just reveal it all to a suspect in an assault. Even if I knew he was wrongly accused. "I actually can't really talk about it right now. Why don't you tell me what happened over there after I left."

"Well, according to the guy who spotted us when we came in, I started a fight with them last night, and then later came back to drunkenly continue it. He says he saw me stab Paul."

"That's interesting." Especially since I have the person who actually stabbed Paul in the room with me. "Who is this witness?"

"Someone named Quil." I started to answer, but he cut me off before I could. "Listen, can you call my family? Do you still have their number?"

"I, yeah. I still have their number."

"Hey, good. I think I've got to go, right, Officer? Yeah, he says that I need to go now. My mom will be glad to hear from you."

"She will?" But the line was dead at this point. I turned back to Rose. "Do you know someone named Quil?"

"Quil? Yeah. Indian kid. He's friends with Paul."

"Was he at the party?"

"I don't really know. I- I think he was."

"Was he around when..."

Rose seemed more willing to say it than I was. "When I stabbed Paul?"

"Yeah... Was he there then?"

She shook her head. "I didn't see him around then. I don't think I saw him at least."

"Well, he seems to think a friend of mine stabbed Paul." Wait a minute. A friend of mine?

Rose was smart enough not to ask the super obvious question.

"Rose, not that I disprove, but .... why did you stab him?" Actually, leave it to Royce to be smart enough to ask the even more super obvious question.

It was strange. You couldn't say the fire left Rose's eyes. If anything they burned angrier. But she got smaller somehow. "He... he..."

I went to give Rose a hug, already anticipating what she would say.

"Don't touch me!" She snapped sticking a hand in the middle of my chest to keep me away. "He raped me, and I wish I'd killed him!"

Good. I'm honestly glad that she was that pissed off at him, that she decided to stab him. I don't know if she just out of the blue did it for revenge, or if he had been about to hurt her again, but fuck him. She's good in my book. Rose had taken the time while I'd been silently rejoicing at his deserved stabbing to collapse into Royce's arms, sobbing.

***

I burst into Carly's office with more information than ever before. I have to wonder if I will ever manage to reach this sort of height again, because I know who committed the crime, I know who is lying, for once, I know everything! And it wasn't a dream. It might have actually been nightmarish for the people in it. I could tell people all of this. It was a euphoric feeling, to be so well informed. It was quite a turn around from earlier in the day.

"I've solved the case!" I sang as I walked in. So I'm morbid, get over it.

"That's what the police were just telling me."

"Really? They called to tell you I solved the case? Usually they tell people to send me to see some sort of grief counselor."

Carly didn't think I was funny.

"What do you have?" she asked, putting down the phone she had been on.

"I have a student who confessed to the stabbing. You should be able to get fingerprints off the knife that she stabbed him with. She says she took it from the kitchen."

Carly tapped her pencil on the desk. Was she holding that pencil the whole time? Making notes, talking on the phone, and offering rejoinders when I walked into her office? The woman wasn't human. "Alice, that was not the story that the police had."

"I know, that was why there was that bit about the weapon and checking for finger prints. That would confirm _my _story as the correct one."

Carly sighed and put down everyone she was working on. "Alice. No one found any weapon on the scene. No one found any weapon at all."

Well, there went my sanity proving, police flipping off story confirmation. "So someone tampered with the scene."

"Alice," for once, Carly was motionless. She actually laid her head down on her desk. "Are you telling me that you have some inside knowledge that even the police don't have? Of some conspiracy by the police or administration or various fraternal organizations?"

No. Nononono. Not again. This was not happening again!

Carly sat up again, and met my eyes.

Fuck.

***

"Alice! There's a bunch of people here for you!"

"Lianne, tell them to go away! Can't you see I'm-" Royce tossed aside the curtain that separated my sun room and the living room, "moping."

I sat there shocked. Rose and Jasper were standing behind him. "Alice, this is an- It's a-"

I realized why he was having a little trouble getting his pronouncement out. I threw my blanket over myself as Rose smacked him in the back of the head. "Get out of here!"

The curtain fell back into place, and I grabbed pair of pajama pants and an threw them on. Fortunately, other than that I could be presented to decent, though certainly not formal, society.

Jasper was the only one in the room when I came out. "Snoopy and Woodstock?"

"Shut up, Donatello." I glanced around. "Where'd the other interventionists end up?"

He shrugged, "that girl's giving them a tour of the apartment."

I rolled my eyes. As if this apartment had anything special to it that would justify a tour. "Not that I don't think you're capable of noticing, but why are you guys here? How did you find me?"

"You haven't gone to class all week. You've called in sick to your job. You've been refusing to take anyone's calls."

"You aren't in my classes. Or my work. And you called once!" And you're in my apartment! We haven't been anything for a year. We hadn't spoken a kind word to each other until you stabbed a guy since...

"What are you really doing here?"

He looked at me for a minute, then shrugged again. "I need you. Witnesses say I did it. I can't remember what happened. Paul says I did it. No one can find any evidence."

"Yeah, I know!" I collapsed back onto my bed. "Jasper, I can't do that again. I've barely put my life back together! Like you said. I made a friend for christ sakes."

"Yeah, and judging by the lab partners back there, Royce might have made one too."

"What?"

"Nothing, I just have a feeling about those two. They seem kind of content together."

I shrugged. I hadn't interacted with Rose after that first day. I'd called Jasper's family, and then I had gone home to hide from everything. He was right. His mother had sounded happy to hear from me, and had asked how I was. She'd apologised for how Jasper had acted even, which was more than _he'd _ever done. And then she had heard what I was calling about. It all stopped being so cheerful and kind after that. She'd gotten off the phone as quick as she could. "Have I missed anything else?"

"Well, they only have a couple witnesses that say they saw me stab him, against a jealous ex girlfriend who says that I didn't stab him. So I got a pretty low bail."

"Jealous ex girlfriend?"

"Apparently Rose and Paul used to be ... some sort of item."

"And then he raped her," I muttered. Great world we live in.

"Actually, Paul said they broke up because he cheated on her."

Not what I was expecting. "So Rose was..."

"Telling the truth. She stayed with him after he raped her. She admitted that she broke up with him after he cheated on her."

I know that it's wrong of me, but part of me was infuriated with Rose for not kicking his ass to the police station as soon as he hurt her.

"Wow. So, you're defense is looking..."

"As weak as their prosecution. They don't have any reason that I would have stabbed Paul except for a fight that I got in earlier and don't remember."

"Any other surprises?"

"Ms. Cullen and your office have been pulled of the case. She kind of believes the police story, though she seems pissed at everyone that the knife used to stab him hasn't been found yet. There's now one missing from Emmett's frat's kitchen, so everyone is pretty sure that is the missing piece of evidence."

"Wow. That sucks."

"Do you think you could help me?"

"Jasper," I'm just a kid, holy shit. I'm not even a private investigator or anything. I worked at the ombudsperson's office for a couple weeks. I'm not even supposed to like you! I hate your friends! "I'll do anything I can to help."

"You know you don't have any reason to help me."

"You know I probably won't be any good to you."

Royce and Rose leaned in from where they'd been eavesdropping in the hall. "So she's in?"

***

Today was a new day. I'd sat at home and started thinking about how I should go about investigating this. I decided I am smart enough to figure out a bunch of college students trying to cover up a crime. At the very least, I'll have inside access to a lot of things. I can be Jasper's eyes on the inside. Now I was going to get back on the horse, go to class again, show up at work-

"I ought to fire you, you know."

"Nice to see you too, Ms. Cullen."

"Alice, sit down." She closed a file folder. I was starting to wonder if her desk any actual surface on it, or just some infinite ream of file folders. I sat in the chair across from the space time anomaly that was her desk. "Why would I not want to hire you, if I was a potential employer?"

"Because of my drug convictions?"

"If you ever miss work because of some psychological collapse again, you're done here."

"I was sick."

"I called Royce and asked him. The boy's a terrible liar. By the way, I will arrest you myself if I find you going through any police files or anything that I think is not related to your work while you are in my office." Guess I'd just have to make sure and do any snooping outside her office then.

I made some calls about our latest case, which was someone harassing the people in charge of gay pride week. Some grad student named Esme seemed to be taking the brunt of it. All in all, a slower day for us. I think Carly was a little worried that I would go crazy without notice again. As soon as we finished, I headed off to my new second job. Studying was taking a back seat for a while.

***

I was buzzed up pretty quickly. I guess they were all waiting for me to start. Jasper's apartment was very different this time. Much cleaner. The futon was in the couch version of it. He'd pulled a short black coffee table out of somewhere, and a couple extra chairs. And now there was a marker and a bulletin board.

Four heads turned towards me as I walked in.

Wait a minute. Four? The agreed upon team was me, Jasper, Rose, and Royce. "What the hell is Emmett doing here?"

"I want to help."

"Emmett, I don't really care what you want."

"Alice." Jasper came over to me. "Please? He really is my friend."

He's not mine. He's not Royce or Rose's. Why are you able to get me to agree to this sort of thing, Jasper? "Fine. But if he causes any problems, I'm out."

I glared at Emmett. "I guess our little gang has one more member."

I spun back towards the rest of the group. "So, did you all accomplish anything while I was at work?"

"Nothing beyond getting the bulletin and white boards, Alice." Of course they'd all waited on me. I was the investigator. I was in charge, and I was the one who had claimed she had any plan to help.

"Alright. First then, let's make a list of every person involved."

"In the fight? Or just in the whole situation?" Emmett, of course.

"The whole situation for now."

"Paul, of course," offered Rose.

"Me and Rose." Yes, I think the person who is the suspect might be involved.

"The deeks. Paul, Embry, and Quil, I mean. Not the whole frat." Remarkably fair, coming from Emmett. I added Emmett and Jessica to the list. The others started spouting even more witnesses that I hadn't heard about. People they said had seen someone or other do this, or had been with one person or another, but I think those seven were the most important.

"Who do we think could have done it?" I asked next.

"I did it. Who cares who else might have been able to?" Rose asked.

"I'm hoping to keep the idea that any of us did it from being what the popular perception is." This drew some murmurs of disapproval. And there were only five people here. "Oh come on, Royce. We all know that he had it coming. I don't want Rose to get in any trouble either."

"Well, in that case, Jessica could have done it. She found him." Emmett again. At least he was willing to talk. "Jasper could have done it. But he might have been a little too drunk at that point."

"Me, of course," added Rose.

"Did anyone account for the other deeks?" No one had, so they got added to the suspect list.

"First, I want us to figure out who was actually unaccounted for. Do we have any way of actually finding out where the deeks of Jessica were? Can," I ground my teeth, "Edward vouch for where she was?"

"Maybe," said Emmett. "I'll check with him."

"Great. Maybe you'll be useful after all." Of course, Emmett was my main suspect right now. His story was the only one that had changed.

Plus, I _really _hate him.

**Author's note: This chapter was written very hurriedly, and I really don't like it. there are so many things I want to do, and I can't do any of them yet. Just remember to trust no one.**


	8. Chapter 8

There was something different. I couldn't quite place what it was. Carly was always immaculate. Not that she was always made up like she was going out to a red carpet premier, but she always looked nice, and nothing was ever out of place. She wasn't dressed radically differently. Black slacks, a red blouse that looked kind of businessy. Her hair was it's usual golden tresses swept back into a pony tail, with a few random wisps escaping every now and then to hang around her face. But somehow she seemed different than she had in any other day.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I worked. She swept a set of files into a drawer, straightened another stack that was sitting on her notepad, then seemed to stop.

"Alice."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you could lock up tonight?" Was that what it was? She was nervous because she was going to actually go home? Or because she was going to leave me with some real life responsibility?

"I mean, you know I don't have keys-"

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll leave you mine." How... trusting of her.

"Then I don't see why I can't. Aren't you supposed to meet up with someone from the gay pride committee though?"

"Yes I am. But I don't think I'll come back to the office afterwards." Well, that would be new.

"Well, ok."

"Great, here's the keys for the office." Carly hurriedly handed me a key ring. Part of me wanted to look at her funny, but if she was coming down with something, it'd be better to not torment her.

Carly just sat at her desk, nervously drumming her fingers as she waited. I tried to work, I really did, but it was just too much fun to watch her. Carlisle Cullen not working was much too good a sight to pass up. Finally, after a few minutes of her torture, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Carly called. A woman with wavy brown hair timidly stepped into the office.

"Hi. Am I in the right place?"

"Yes, you are in the right place, Esme. I'm Carly, and this is my assistant Alice." She gestured toward me.

"Hi," said Esme.

"Hello," I offered back, trying to not burst out laughing.

"Would you like to take a seat. Er, no, I mean-" Watching Carly squirm and stumble over her words was doing wonders for my self esteem. I thought the woman was always perfectly controlled. Robotic almost. "Actually, I was hoping to talk to you somewhere else. Would you like to get some dinner? I mean, while we talk, I was just-"

Eventually, they did make it out the door, Carly managing to walk more gracefully than she was speaking, and Esme disappearing in a swirl of the long flowery maroon skirt she had on. I really hoped that this case took a while, if this was what I got to see whenever key witnesses dropped by.

On the other hand.... I felt around in my pocket. There were three keys on this key ring, and only one lock on the door. Carly had just handed me access to all the locked files that were in her office. Files that I wanted to get a look at for the project that I was working on at home.

I went to the file cabinet that stood in one corner of the office. One of the keys looked much too big to be the one for this lock, but either of the other ones looked the right size. I just picked one, and the lock turned immediately.

There was a loud screech when I pulled the drawer open. I cringed, and hoped that no one else was around. I'd never heard the file cabinets make such noise for Carly. I started looking through, and actually found the file for the, quote, stabbing at the Alpha Sig college day party. Apparently suicide prevention day was officially listed as just a college day. Whatever that meant. I sat down at Carly's desk to glance at the file, and the chair squeaked. I am sure this chair never squeaked. While this day might have proven that Carly is human, it also seems to have reinforced that she is magic somehow. I opened up the file. The first page wasn't the usual incident report, instead, it was a note.

ALICE, IF YOU PUT THIS BACK RIGHT NOW, I WON'T FIRE YOU!

That had to be a bluff, right? There was no way she could know that I would go into her files. Or ever even have the opportunity. Could she?

_Honestly, _it went on, _do you think that there is something in here that I will have missed? If you have some other evidence, you should just tell the police. Or me. Really, you might get farther if you just ask for my help when you think you have some actual evidence. There's nothing in here that will help you. And I will know if you read any farther._

_ P.S. You're going to have to lift up on the drawer to get it to close properly. It also helps make it squeak less._

Even if this whole thing was an elaborate bluff, she did still have a point. If all she had was access to the things that had convinced the police to charge Jasper, she didn't have that much information. Plus, his attorney would get all that stuff when it was disclosed at before trial. I sighed and went to slip the folder back into the file cabinet. Using the facts that had already been gathered was not going to get me and my merry band anywhere.

Of course the file cabinet wouldn't close until I lifted up on it. I tried to force it closed first, just to see if maybe she was fallible.

***

I headed to Jasper's after I locked up Carly's office. He, Emmett, and I were supposed to discuss what Emmett had found out about Jessica and anyone's alibis during the party. For some reason, I was glad to not be going home. It felt good to have somewhere else that people wanted me, I guess.

On the other hand, I was going to have to put up with Emmett.

I get buzzed up without question, just as before, but the apartment door wasn't open when I got to the top of the stairs. I heard hushed voices on the other side. I thought they were arguing about something, but I couldn't be sure. I was pretty sure that I heard three voices though. Is this going to happen every time I come over here.

Jasper finally came out.

"Hi," he said as he slipped around the door. It was one of those maneuvers that you use when you don't want some small yappy dog to run out the door as you exit, where you open the door as little as possible.

"What's going on?" I asked, trying to lean around the door and see. Of course, since I came to about chest level on him, I didn't actually manage to get a view of anything inside.

"I don't think we should talk in there."

"Why not?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Do you want to go grab something to eat?" He took my arm and started leading me away.

"No." I wrenched my arm away. "I want to know what is going on."

"Emmett wasn't as subtle as you probably wanted him to be about checking into everything."

"What does that mean?" I demanded, as I twisted my hand through the air so that Jasper couldn't get a hold of it and try to lead me out of the building.

"It means that Edward realized what he was doing and said that he wanted in." Jasper managed to catch my hand then, because I froze at _his_ name.

"And so he brought Edward to this meeting?"

Jasper nodded, and just holding onto my hand at this point.

"I think you're right, we should definitely go somewhere else." I took off down the stairs before I did something rash. Jasper managed to keep up fine, even though I was heading down at a speed that could have easily resulted in injury to me if I had stumbled.

It was cold outside. It's just always cold in this place, and sometimes I just really missed being near the ocean.

"Why would Emmett think he could bring Edward into this?"

"I think he just figured that Edward was his friend, and had used to be my friend, and that the guy said he wanted to help."

"Used to be your friend?" I asked.

"Ed and I don't talk very much anymore."

I sighed, even though I was glad about him not liking Edward. "I never should have let Emmett join in on this stupid little adventure. It isn't going to work anyway."

"Hey, that's my life you're talking about, you know. Could I at least get a little optimism?"

"Ha. I got some optimism for you. I'm pretty sure Emmett has something to do with this whole thing."

"Wait, you mean besides the fact that it was all in his place and he got into the fight to help me?" Jasper was surprised, as you might expect. Maybe a little indignant, too, like he thought this whole thing was me on my revenge kick again, rather than just what I honestly thought. Not that I could distinguish between my revenge kick and rational thought. If you are crazy one hundred percent of the time, I'm pretty sure that everything looks normal.

"Yep. Emmett McCarty, lead suspect." Jasper let go of my hand as we continued walking.

"Where do you want to eat?" I asked.

"I don't care. Thai?" I really didn't care, so we ended up going to Noodles, etc. It was pretty cheap, especially compared to any of the more American type foods that the restaurants next to it sold. We both ended up getting pad thai, though it looked for a minute like Jasper was going to change his order when he heard me picking the same thing.

"Do you want to hear why I think it's Emmett? Or do you just want to assume that the person you decided was the best one to get you out of this is crazy?"

"So this isn't just a revenge kick?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure. I think I might be crazy, so if I can run things past someone who is sane-" Jasper looked at me questioningly, "or at least crazy in a different way, that would be great."

"I should hear what you have to say, shouldn't I? You're the only one who was willing to help because you believe me."

I took a drink of water while I was dwelling on how flimsy my anti Emmett evidence actually was. "Well, I don't really have much."

Jasper started to say something, but I cut him off. "Emmett lied to me about what happened. His story is the only one that has changed this whole time."

"What did he say? Maybe he just got the details a little mixed up. He was drunk."

"Were you?"

"I was. I mean, I can't even remember most of that night. I don't even remember being at the party."

"Emmett said you weren't drunk when you started the fight. Now that he's heard the story everyone seems to accept, he suddenly decided that you were as drunk as everyone else says."

"That's hardly that important."

"Really? You don't think the fact that you were sober and hadn't blacked out when you started a fight you can't remember isn't crucial information?"

Jasper didn't really look convinced.

"Have you ever blacked out like that before?" I demanded.

This, at least, seemed to make Jasper think for a moment. "Once before. I've only ever blacked out one other time."

"When was that?"

"It was this past summer. I don't want to talk about it." I don't know if he really had to. I knew what had sent me trying to drink myself into oblivion this summer. And I don't even drink anymore.

"How 'bout them rebs?" said Jasper, changing the subject. "They did better good this weekend."

"Yeah, now that it doesn't matter, my team starts winning. Your team is still lined up to get beat in the national championship game."

We made sure to steer clear of anything that might have been construed as important conversation the rest of the meal. Our waiter brought around the bill, and Jasper immediately handed it back to him with a credit card.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"Paying for dinner."

"I can pay for my own dinner," I practically growled. I don't know why I was so defensive about this. I should just eat his food and be done with it.

"Attorneys and investigators bill for this sort of stuff usually, don't they?"

"Is that what I am?" Nothing more than hired help?

"The best investigator I know."

I knew my next line, but somehow, I couldn't just respond that I was the only investigator that he knew.

"I think I'm going to head home," I said as his credit card came back to our table.

"Wait," he said. "Let me walk you home."

I didn't wait, but he managed to catch up with me rather quickly, before I was even out the door.

"Did I do something to upset you?"

"No, I just let my imagination get away from me."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but got cut off. "Is that your boss?"

Jasper was looking into the window of the Medici bakery, which was next door to Noodles, and sure enough, there was Carly. Standing with her arm around the person she had left to go interview.

"Yeah."

"Huh. I didn't realize that she was..."

"I don't know if anyone did. She usually just works all the time."

Our voyeurism couldn't last long as I hurried toward my apartment.

"Alice." Jasper grabbed my shoulder to stop me from breaking into a run to get away from him. As if he couldn't have run me down anyhow.

"Jasper."

"I'm sorry. For whatever I did that upset you right now."

"And your apology started with such great potential."

"What?"

"Don't apologize to a person and then admit that you don't think you did anything wrong."

"Alice-"

"Really, you don't think you did anything wrong, do you?"

I kept going when he didn't respond. "Then don't fucking apologize."

This time, I stalked off, and Jasper was the one who got to stand there.

***

Jasper handled that better than I did when our roles were reversed, because there was an email from him waiting for me when I logged onto my computer that night. I just kind of went into a little mental tail spin that Carly had to practically smack me out of.

It just said _Sorry, I should have known who my real friends were all along._

Short, yet now I couldn't say that his mother had apologized for his actions and that he had not. I wonder if she had talked to him between now and dinner.

Wait a minute, did I even want to be considered his friend? I turned on some music, and let Leonard Cohen lecture me about love. Jasper had picked everyone else when I had needed him. He'd always been better friends with other people, even though it'd been obvious to everyone that the sun, for one Mary Alice Brandon, rose and set with him. Now that he needed me, suddenly he remembered how I had always been there. Now that I could give him something, I was suddenly his most important friend.

I read through a couple more emails. One of my professors wanted me to hurry up and find an interview subject for my final project. Another was warning all of us about additional work that we'd have to do before class. I went cruising around all the different web comics I liked, snorting quietly to myself, but unable to shake the train of thought about Jasper.

I hadn't forgiven Edward, but I don't think I could be expected to. I hadn't forgiven Emmett, even though all he did was help ruin my life. He didn't even kill anyone. Yet for some reason, I acted as if Jasper was different. As if he hadn't abandoned me, just like everyone else had. I should forgive Jasper the least. But for some reason, I couldn't seem to hold everything against him. My mind just wouldn't let go of that vision I'd had of him when we first met. And he just seemed so much more remorseful than everyone else. It wasn't fair. I was supposed to hate all of them. Not some of them, some of the time. All of them, forever. They ruined my life, and killed my friend, and got away with it laughing and smiling, and now Jasper was probably just using me to help him get out of a sticky situation that he and his friends may or may not have actually done something wrong in, and I couldn't seem to care. I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to suddenly see the light and realize that I had been there all along, to suddenly repent of everything we had ever been and tell me that he loved me.

It wasn't fair.

_Maybe there's a God above  
All I ever learned from love  
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you_

**Author's Note: Just out of curiosity, did anyone catch the Indiana Jones reference I was making last chapter? And if so, what sort of terrible things I must have been foreshadowing for our dear protagonist?**

**Oh, and twenty two minutes after this posts, happy birthday to me.  
**


	9. Chapter 9

Finals week. Usually I would be stressing a little, what with the majority of my grades about to be decided. But for once, it was actually providing a little calm. I didn't have to go into work for the week, and I was calling a hiatus in the investigation in the investigation of the stabbing.

I had managed to catch up on all my late work. I had even started to catch up on my sleep a little. For the first time in weeks, I wasn't constantly trying to solve someone else's problems and was able to focus on me.

And it let me avoid Jasper after our little spat. It wasn't the bravest of maneuvers. Hell, it was downright cowardly on my part. But how was I supposed to be dealing with him?

So I was burying myself in papers instead. I'd already finished the interesting one, which was for the deviant behavior class. I was stuck on one of the boring ones now, which was just about the reasons that people donated money and what effected that. Not nearly as enthralling as writing about sexual deviants. Which sounds kind of weird when you say it out loud.

I needed a break, something to take my mind off of writing essays. I stood up pacing around my apartment. It was Friday, everyone else was home and I had been up for the past twenty hours, unless I wasn't able to do subtraction correctly. I turned on some music and started singing along to 'Werewolves of London.'

Except that that wasn't the beat from the song. That was someone knocking on my door.

How did someone get to the door of my apartment? They should have had to buzz at the building door to get in here in the first place.

Hopefully it isn't a home invader. Or someone who decided to become one when they saw that I probably wasn't quite the best home defender.

And the mystery knocker was... a skinny native American that I had met once before. "Whatever it is, I'm not interested in buying one right now."

"Hi, you're Alice, right?"

"No, she actually went home for winter break already."

"Really? But-"

"Shut up, Quil." Stupid people surround me. I waved him in while I walked to the kitchen. "I'm Alice. And you're a witness in a court case that probably shouldn't be talking to me."

"Really? When did there start being a law against talking to hot girls?"

"Arguably when Title 18 section 1512 was passed." Of course he had no idea what I was talking about. Convenient little water boilers and hot chocolate are great when you want something to do with your hands. "What do you want, Quil?"

"I wanted to know why you're helping to get Jasper off." He giggled a little while I rolled my eyes.

I was talking to a first grader. "Because I don't think he did it."

"Why do you think he didn't do it? Because he told you so with those soulful blue eyes and swore it wasn't him?"

"He doesn't remember any of what happened that night. Black outs from alcohol should only make him forget the back half of the night."

"So because he says he doesn't remember he must not have done it? How does that prove anything?" he demanded.

"He must have been drugged, Quil!"

"You must be on drugs. He's just full of shit."

"Get out of my apartment!" Quil didn't move until I picked up a pot of boiling water.

"Hey wait, are you crazy!" He started backing up for the door now.

"Yeah! I'm crazy! Now get the hell out of here!"

He ran out the door, which I slammed. I finished making my hot chocolate, which didn't have any marshmallows. I guess I really wasn't in the marshmallows mood anyway.

"He's playing you!" came drifting up to my window. I ran over and was going to slam it, but it was December, of course it was closed. I settled for flipping him off. Damn, he must have a set of lungs on him to have shouted that all the way up here. Regardless, I had about four hours to get this paper in, and now that I had a cup of hot chocolate, I felt my second wind coming on.

***

Only an hour to spare, but I'd managed to get in that last essay. Compulsive pointless running up the stairs to hand it in had left me a little out of breath, but I felt like I should get in something quirky and celebratory. Last essay of the quarter, something should have been done.

Something besides the immediate nap that I had gone with.

It was nice to be refreshed. I didn't have any work that I even really could do, and I was done with everything. I could go out, or have a nice long bubble bath, or turn my music up loud enough to disturb neighbors who weren't even in town any more. Or I could answer the door, because someone was buzzing at the door. I guess it wasn't Quil again. I threw on some slippers and ran down the freezing stairs to see who the hell it was.

And it was no one. Just a small golden envelope, with a red bow around it.

Weird. I hadn't gotten a Christmas present in years. I suppose it was time I got something for all my good behavior.

On the other hand, given the world I've lived in so far, maybe it was anthrax.

I sighed, opening the letter. Rather floridly, it simply said, 12 days.

**Author's note: Haven't thought of you lately at all. And maybe one of you get that joke. Anyway, sorry this is late, not that any of you care. This is a three part Christmas special that will be occuring months late. But its for her Christmas, not yours. It will be posted in short but surly sections more rapidly than usual. And the more reviews you give, the better it will turn out for Alice. If there are only like two reviews, I will make sure that Alice has a rotten Christmas. Maybe I'll kill off Jasper right in front of her. So review.**


	10. Chapter 10

Unless that little envelope had been a warning about dozens of guests bringing treasury tribute and some fruit and poultry, shopping was in order.

Still, the weird note had put me in a better mood than I'd been in a while. Rather than be annoyed at the snow that was sifting down to form drifts much more troubling to me than they were to most people out of elementary school, I found it refresh. Like the snow was some sort of baptism, making the world pure and white, and giving us another chance at everything. I saw a hobo I recognized get on a bus, and rather than assume he had conned his fellow man out of enough money for the day, (as honorable a profession as any) I decided that the bus driver must have just decided to take pity on him, and let him onto the bus to warm up as they both continued their rounds.

At Treasure Island, the free samples weren't just marketing attempts with whatever was in over supply. No, now they were buffet put out as a kind hand towards our fellow man.

And when at the register, waiting in line, the man in front of me pulled out a .38, it was... well, turned out it was still a stick up, even in my good mood. Further more, it turned out that he had quite a few people in the store with him. A couple more guys waved guns around behind the lines, while two more ran through the store collecting food, booze, and wallets.

"Drop it and get on the floor!" he screamed at a cop who walked in. The cop dropped, but not his gun. He pulled that out and popped off a shot at the guy, who promptly returned fire as the cop rolled back behind the wall he had just walked around. You would think our gun man would have decided to drop behind the counter about then, put as much material between him and any more bullets as he could.

But no, he wasn't smart enough to do that. I was, but all it got me was yanked back up by my snow covered and now damp hair. I tried to claw at the arm around my next, but the winter coats here are more than enough protection again my nails. And then I felt a gun in my hair, and I stopped moving.

"We've got a hostage! Drop your gun or the kid gets it!"

"Kid! I'm a third year at the university! And you could have at least taahnnn-" A hand clamped over my mouth, keeping me from saying that he could have at least taken the a hostage that offered more protection from people returning fire, rather than the smallest person in the store. But apparently he wasn't interested. He was so disinterested, in fact, that he whacked me in the head with his gun.

That doesn't knock you out as easy as people think. But damn will it hurt. It made me kind of woozy too, and I wondered if I missed some sort of important exchange, either of words or gun fire, because we were running out the front door to a black van idling on the curb. The cop was no where to be seen. I hoped he was ok.

Wait Wait. Shit! I tried to scream, but there was now a whole mouth full of jacket in the way. I bit down, hoping to get some sort of response, but all that happened was an additional whack in the noggin for me.

My ears rung, but I could sort of make out what they were talking about. Guess what? It was me!

"What do you mean get rid of her?" demanded someone from the front of the van. "That isn't what I signed on for. We were knocking over a place, splitting the take, and getting out of town. That was it!"

"Yeah, well, Riley picked a shitty place!"

"Don't say my name!" shouted the man holding me. How else would I have learned his name, after all? If he stays quiet, I still don't know who any of them are. But then again, he is the guy who just tried to knock over the grocery store in Hyde Park. The neighborhood of President Barack Obama got more than it's share of officers from the Chicago police department, along with the extra help from the University of Chicago Police, who were one of the largest private security forces in the world. It was the worst heist ever that didn't involve holding up a gun store.

"You might as well let her go, Rye. It isn't like no one will realize this is our van."

He let me go, and I slumped against the wall of the van. The only seats were in the front, and we all were just on bare metal. "Try anything funny and I'll shoot you."

"You could just let me go," I suggested.

"You'll rat us out," replied Riley.

"Rat you out?" I laughed. "There's no ratting to be done. They know who you are. You probably have a tail right now and I only know one name in this whole van." I glanced around. "Plus, you're all wearing too much cold wear gear to even identify."

The two in the front had their heads together, whispering about something.

"Seriously, just let me out here. I won't cause you any trouble." They kept talking as if I hadn't said anything. "Please?"

At this point, everyone was just ignoring me.

"Ok," announced the guy in the passenger seat. "We're going to go back to the house, and decide what to do there, once we meet back up with everyone else."

"You mean with your _girlfriend_," muttered Riley to himself. He really needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.

**Author's note: Well, some of you seemed to feel that I should keep writing this. But I am unpersuaded that it should have a happy ending. Still open ended enough right now that everyone could end up happy at the end of this rather delayed special.**


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